AVAILING PRAYER

By

Fay C. Martin

(First Published in 1929)

FAITH PUBLISHING HOUSE

Digitally Published by

GOSPEL TRUTH PUBLISHING

www.churchofgodeveninglight.com

Dedicated to

My Sainted Mother

Who Is Now With

Jesus and the Angels

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

THE NATURE OF PRAYER

THE CONQUERING FORCE OF PRAYER

REASONS FOR PRAYER

CONDITIONS

ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER

HUMILITY IN PRAYER

FAITH AND FEELING, OR EMOTION

FAITH AND REASON

TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS OF FAITH

THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN A REVIVAL

THE GETHSEMANE PRAYER

HOW TO OFFER PREVAILING PRAYER

THE POWER OF JESUS’ NAME

SECRET PRAYER

UNITED PRAYER

PUBLIC PRAYER

THE ANSWER

THE KINGLY POWER OF BELIEVERS

THE SPIRIT’S AID IN SUCCESSFUL PRAYER

THE CHRISTIAN’S POWER-HOUSE

PREFACE

With a heart throbbing for lost souls and the upbuilding of God’s great cause and kingdom here on earth, we have undertaken this work.

A world-wide revival is needed. The church needs a revival. Local congregations need reviving. The one great need of the hour is that every individual member of Christ’s body come to realize the necessity of revival till the whole soul and heart and mind and strength cry unto God, “And begin it in me.”

For months the author has personally felt this crying need till his very soul longs intensely for more of God and more of God’s power and nearness and blessings and presence. It is gratifying to feel the revival waves surging in one’s very being and to know the fires are already kindled in many hearts, but to the end thousands may be stirred and revived and enlivened with holy zeal and enthusiasm and with a hope and a prayer many thousands of others may be swept to “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world,” we undertake this work.

Realizing that a revival cannot come but through prayer, and that prevailing prayer is hastened and fired by the Holy Spirit, and that true revival effort must be accompanied with and based on the blessed and inspired Word of God, we have attempted to give each of these particular phases a rightful place.

The writer is not claiming originality for all the various thoughts of this volume and desires humbly to acknowledge the great help of the book, “Prevailing Prayer” by Weigle, together with the writings gleaned here and there of various other authors during past years.

We send this book forth with no apologies but the blood of Christ shed on the cross of Calvary that none “should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (II Pet. 3:9); with a prayer on our lips that mighty, flaming revival fires may be kindled in every nation under heaven, in every cold, dead, informal church, in every indifferent local congregation, and in the hearts of thousands of individuals, to the extent the end may be “the gospel to every creature, to every town, to every city, to every nation in all the world.”

Yours in Christ,

—Fay C. Martin

THE NATURE OF PRAYER

The divine injunction given through inspiration of the blessed Holy Spirit—“Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17) at once conveys the idea of the necessity and importance, together with the great value of prayer.

The Hebrew for “prayer” means appeal and intercession, while the Greek conveys the idea of spiritual approach to God. The Word informs us to pray for the things we need (Matt. 6:11-13). Prayer-real, worthwhile, successful prayer, makes approach close enough, to God, our heavenly Father, through His Son, Jesus, that one may appeal in his own behalf and in behalf of others for those things of which there is real need.

Millions of prayers have ascended from lips of clay, or, rather, we may say, have been offered. The question arises—how many of these prayers have been answered? We are no doubt safe in saying that a great many of these prayers never readied the throne with force enough and appeal enough to bring a reply. This being true we may well ask, “Why?”

One answer may be that while prayer is a real privilege, too many, yes, all too many, look upon it as a real burden. Again some, if each and every prayer is not answered, and answered at once, feel like one stunned by a mighty blow, and from that time on pray no more with expectation.

The fact of it is we are all, every one of us, but pupils in the school of prayer. Like the early disciples we need to implore, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). Too many of us would attempt at once to realize faith sufficient for every problem, present and future. But the great Teacher desires His trusting, faithful pupils to master the problems as they come. Here is an example of an unforeseen problem, in the solution of which prayer availed:

Some missionaries were set upon and surrounded by a howling mob who were crying for their blood because, as they said, “no rain will come till such time as foreign blood is spilled.” Then it was that the missionaries knelt and earnestly prayed, and scarcely had they risen from their knees when the clouds blackened and lowered, and the storm broke in fury upon the mob, dispersing them, and the missionaries were spared.

“Pray without ceasing” surely means never to get out of the habit of prayer, but rather to keep at it and at it and at it. “Men ought always to pray” (Luke 18:1).

Prayer is the stepping-stone to victory. There is a story in mythology about a giant named Antaeus, who, in order to keep alive, had to touch the earth as often as once every five minutes. With each and every touch he became twice as strong as the preceding touch made him. This may well explain the nature and power of prayer. Every real touch of the divine through prayer adds real strength and increased faith to that one who approaches near enough to God to realize the blessing.

Prayer is offered on the assumption that God knows our need even before we call. It is the innermost man, yes, the very soul conversing with its God. It is the appointed means of communion between God and man. In fact, it is natural for genuine Christians to pray.

Prayer is like the crying of an infant in the night. Although dark he puts up his little hands with real expectation that Mother’s touch will shortly be felt. In prayer, God’s trusting child puts up his little, feeble hands to God’s big, powerful ones. He opens his mouth like the little birds for a regular feed and the satisfying portion which takes away that keen, gnawing hunger.

Prayer is indispensable either to private or public worship. As prayer ceases, to that extent does spirituality wane either in the individual, the local church, or the church in general. All real saints ever have been, are now, and ever shall be, fervent and mighty in prayer. It somehow has a subjective value necessary to individual piety and to be acceptable includes offering up the desires of the heart.

Prayer and faith are separate and distinct. For instance, one may do considerable praying with practically little or no faith, while again one may have great faith with scarcely any prayer. But while prayer and faith are distinct, yet they are not independent of each other.

Prevailing prayer is the constant knocking at the door with the expectation it will be opened. One may have faith but unless he prays (asks, implores) he need expect to receive nothing from God. One may pray, but without faith he expects and receives nothing from God. “Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works” (James 2:18).

Prayer is the breath that fans the flame of faith. Fanned to a white heat it burns out all dross and melts away all barriers between heaven and earth.

Prayer blended with faith makes prayer easier, more pleasant, and attractive to the one who prays. Faith blended with prayer wafts faith to the throne and causes it to attract the attention of and brings gifts from God. “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:22). While distinct, prayer and faith are interdependent. Prayer is to faith what lungs are to oxygen. It takes faith in, and out of it expels the dross, thereby presenting faith pure before the throne of God. It arouses and puts faith to work. It wings faith up to the courts of heaven.

The prayer of faith waits on God. A minister was holding a revival in Edinburgh when the president of an infidel society came in to ridicule and prevent, if possible, persons from going forward for prayer. The minister stepped up and asked the infidel, “Are you a Christian?”

The reply was, “No.”

“Well, do you want to be one?”

With a sneer, the infidel replied, “I should say not.”

“Then shall we kneel and pray together?” asked the minister.

“I do not believe in prayer,” answered the infidel.

“Well, then, will you allow me to kneel and pray for you?”

“Yes, but it will do no good,” replied the infidel with sarcasm.

After the minister had knelt and poured out his heart in prayer for the soul of the infidel, the infidel remarked with seeming glee, “I don’t feel any different at all.”

“Wait,” said the minister, “wait a while; for we do not desire to rush God.”

Two years later when they met again the infidel said, “See, your prayers weren’t answered.”

The minister replied, “Just don’t get uneasy, but wait, for God sometimes takes time.”

Some few years later the infidel went to another service, yielded himself to God, and was gloriously saved.

Prayer is not worldly addresses uttered to be heard of men. Neither is it a set of frigid formalities. The form of prayer, if the prayer is from the heart, is of little consequence by itself. The tongue of the eloquent or the lips of the stammering have an equal value in the sight of God.

THE CONQUERING FORCE OF PRAYER

Christ and Christianity must conquer. They will eventually conquer. But they must conquer by prayer or not at all. This is a day of methods and plans and policies. Prayer is the most neglected and abused art and duty of the modern church. When the church awakens to this fact and rises to the occasion the battle will be short and victorious for the “faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”

Of Jacob the angel fresh from the presence of the Lord declared, “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed” (Gen. 32:28). Herein lies the secret of success, viz., no more Jacob, the supplanter, but Israel, the soldier of God. Jacob had a battle, a real wrestling match, on the outcome of which depended his power with both God and men.

He had learned the secret that in order to have power with men he must first have power with God. This blessing became the craving desire of his whole being. A night of wrestling, a decision at daybreak, a determination as the blackness of the midnight gives way to the morning hours, persistence as the sun rises and the victory

is his while the heavenly messenger in breathless defeat exclaims, “Thou hast prevailed.” “Ask,” says He who cannot lie, “ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance” (Ps. 2:8). Ask in faith believing, for “all things are possible to him that believeth.”

The early church had power. The questions for us to solve and answer are—how did they get this power? From whence did they get it? What could they do with it? What did they do with it? Inspiration reveals the secret: “These all continued with one accord in prayer.” (Acts 1:14). “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven” (Acts 2:1, 2). “The place was shaken” (Acts 4:31).

A Jacob spends a night in prevailing prayer and conquers. A church spends a night in prayer with one accord and conquers to the extent “the place was shaken,” and three thousand souls were added to the church (Acts 2:41).

As much earnestness and determination on the part of individual Christians, or of any congregation today who are serving the same God, the same Christ who is “the same yesterday, and today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8) will bring the same results.

Prayer is the conquering force. Esau was conquered while Jacob was on his knees. The mouths of lions were closed while Daniel was on his knees. Rain was withheld and sent while Elijah was on his knees. The Israelites were spared while Moses was on his knees. The Jews were spared while Queen Esther fasted and prayed. Peter was released from prison while the church prayed.

Three thousand souls were saved after one church had spent a night in an upper room with one accord, in earnest, prevailing prayer. Three thousand churches today can, without prayer, save no

souls. Perhaps herein lies the secret of so little of real definite salvation work, so few genuine soul-saving campaigns today.

Sinners trembled and the earth shook while Paul and Silas, lying on their backs in a cold, damp, filthy inner prison, prayed.

The Syrophenician woman’s demoniac daughter was delivered while the mother prayed and implored and exercised the faith she had. The death warrant of Bloody Mary was signed in heaven while John Knox was on his knees.

Sinners must be quickened by the prayers and faith of the church before they will get under conviction and cry out as of old, “What must I do to be saved?” “Pray ye the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers” has kept the Christian church supplied with workers until the present time.

A college boy studying to be a physician and about to graduate and receive his diploma got under deep conviction and received a definite experience of salvation. With many misgivings he wrote to his mother that he had throughout life been convicted he would eventually be a minister, and he asked her permission to take up a course of study with that end in view.

The old mother caught the next train, rushed across the Green Mountains, and informed the son that she, when he was a boy, had sent his infant garments across the sea to a missionary with the request that he (the missionary) agree in prayer that her son might one day become a preacher.

The church most upon her knees will have the fewest vacancies in heaven. Every church needs to learn the place of prayer, the power of prayer, how to pray, and above all, how to prevail. Having learned these things and having put them into practice, her success is assured.

Prayer is the root and strength of all church work. It is the very highest trait of a Christ-like life. By prayer we receive of God’s life and are made partakers of Christ’s character. “As Jesus prayed the fashion of his countenance was changed.” See that sad, that bitter, that hard-looking countenance of yonder professor? Do you know what will change it into a joyful, sweet, and soft-looking countenance? “Prayer changes things” for the better. It is prayer that links us to the throne.

During February of 1861, a terrible gale raged along the coast of England. In one bay eighty-one vessels were wrecked. The “Rising Sun,” a big ship, went down, leaving her two masts above water. To these masts were clinging a number of seamen. The winds howled and the sea raged and the waves dashed. The masts and their human freight swayed back and forth. Finally, one mast snapped and fell, plunging its cargo into a watery grave. The lifeline shot out just as the other mast gave way in the unbearable strain. The life-savers on the shore began as rapidly as possible to pull in the line. Their hearts fainted with loss of hope, when one of them suddenly cried out, “Boys, there is something attached to this line.” Their efforts were redoubled and shortly a boy with a death grip on the line was pulled onto the shore. As they worked over his nearly lifeless form and as he began to revive, he opened his eyes and gasped, “Mother has been praying for me.” Oh, for more praying, prevailing mothers!

There is no channel but through the church to save sinners. The church is the connecting link between the Holy Spirit and the unsaved. If the church fails, the Holy Spirit will fail. Hence the church needs to be charged with divine power. “Tarry,” is the injunction. “Tarry until ye be endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). More tarrying will bring better and greater results.

Beloved saints of God, the responsibility is on us and must be met either here or at the judgment. We must prevail with God or we may as well stop asking for purity, for power, for the unsaved. We expect some time to prevail, and if we really want to do so, then why not now? Time is fleeting; souls are perishing, we are nearing eternity, while God’s inspired Book says “now”—“Now is the accepted

time.” Christ’s blood cries now, and the interest of lost souls thunders now.

REASONS FOR PRAYER

In James’ Epistle, the fifth chapter and sixteenth verse, we read, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

Now, if we are taught to pray one for another and that effectual, fervent prayer avails much, provided it comes from the lips of a righteous man, there must be a reason for prayer. Why does God make the prayer of faith the condition for receiving? Does He not already know what we have need of before we ask, and knowing our need can He not give without our asking? Then what are the reasons for praying?

1. Prayer, in the very beginning, brings us to realize our dependence on God. Without prayer one takes all honor, glory, and credit to himself and God is left entirely out. Thus he loses all sight of a Supreme Being and acts altogether independently of his Maker.

As the Dead Sea drinks in the River Jordan and becomes no sweeter, and the ocean receives all the rivers and becomes no fresher, so the prayerless man becomes insensible to God’s mercies.

2. Prayer makes us humble before God. Having once recognized our dependence on Him and that every good and perfect gift comes from God and “in him we live and move and have our being,” one cannot but feel humble. Prayer is not so much the feeling of humility as it is the act of humility, but at the same time if one does not feel humble he is not apt to act it. More humility will cause more prayer and more prayer will cause more humility.

3. Prayer is the only means of personal acquaintance with God. We may without prayer know some things about God. We may believe in God and in His existence and power, but to be personally acquainted with Him means we must become acquainted in the same manner in which we become acquainted with other persons, Viz., personal contact, and the only means of personal contact with God is through prayer and conversation with Him.

4. “God heareth not sinners,” hence the suppliant must abandon sin or be defeated in his suit. If really honest, sincere, and in earnest, a man will be ashamed continually to ask favors of one against whom, in conduct and conversation, he is in rebellion. Therefore prayer will in every instance give a greater desire to live in such manner as to be worthy of God’s favors.

5. Prayer brings man into harmony with God. Our problems, trials, tests, and heartaches, as well as triumphs, victories, achievements, and conquests become His. In turn His problems, interests, concerns, become ours. In other words, He becomes more interested in us and our affairs and we become more interested in His.

6. Prayer is the best means through which to assimilate the character of God. To become better acquainted with, to know God better is to love and admire and adore and reverence Him more, and

while so doing one cannot but long to become more like Him, thus assimilating His very character.

7. Prayer brings us into association with God’s perfections. God is the One and the only One to whom belongs absolute perfection. Through prayer and closer contact one cannot but be naturally drawn into at least a few of those perfections.

8. Prayer is one of the most effectual means of self-discovery. If interested to pray God to remove the imperfections of others (in other words, talking to God about such imperfections instead of to our friends and acquaintances) we may discover that some of those very same imperfections belong to us in possibly a greater measure than to the other parties.

9. Prayer is the strongest bond of attraction toward God. This accounts for the fact of ungodly, wicked men almost unconsciously calling upon God in time of trouble and serious calamity.

10. Prayer is fellowshipping God, and to fellowship Him brings us into fellowship with His children. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” “If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother.” “Pray for your enemies” is among the very best commands Jesus ever gave, for to do so is the easiest and quickest way to iron out difficulties and hindrances to fellowship.

More praying will bring a deeper and richer and fuller fellowship with both God and our fellow beings.

Two men may grasp separate battery cords and there is no power, but the very moment they join hands the current is felt. Thus when brethren are out of harmony and disunited and without true fellowship, there can be no true contact with God. But once they are induced to join hands and truly fellowship each other the mighty current of God’s power immediately starts, and both can get their prayers through to God.

Blessings are too often hindered through the dropping of a neighbor’s or a brother’s or a sister’s hand from feelings of jealousy and pride. When all with ungloved hands take hold of each other’s

hands, the power of united prayer will be felt and many a revival break out to shake whole communities and turn them to God.

11. Prayer brings us to greater realization of the perils of the lost. Having learned of and felt God’s love thrilling through our being, we can more readily realize what a soul would miss to lose heaven and our Redeemer, and go to a devil’s hell.

After days and nights of wrestling with God for lost souls, John Smith buried his face in his hands and sobbed, “I’m a broken-hearted man; I’m a broken-hearted man.”

12. Prayer is the means by which we become “laborers together with God.”

To illustrate: A cannon is useless without the cannon ball, and neither is of any value for its intended use except as they are joined with powder. But all placed together in proper position and handled in the right manner may be used to the pulling down of mighty strongholds.

In a sense we are like the cannon, an instrument through which the great gunner sends the ball, the powerful and mighty Word of God, which if touched off with the fire and powder of prayer becomes “mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.” (2 Cor. 10:4).

The prayer-room is the power-house of the Christian who is a successful laborer for God and lost souls, against Satan and the power of evil.

CONDITIONS

In James 4:3 we read, “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”

Here we have motive, or conditions, and a clear indication that the answer to prayer depends thereon.

We must distinguish between prayer and its conditions. To pray is one thing; while the conditions for that prayer are quite another thing.

Prayer is the act of presenting a request. The conditions are included in the act. For instance, confession is an act, yet it may or may not be a heart confession. It may be a true confession based on pure motives, or on the other hand a false confession made for the express purpose of personal gain. Thus the state of the petitioner’s heart and mind becomes a condition.

On the object in view in making the petition depends to a great extent the reward of the petition. If one has a proper motive one may expect a definite answer. Should the motive be improper one may rest assured God knows such motive and will consider it in answering.

The writer is acquainted with a trained nurse who one time related the following: While nursing in a home she one day heard bitter wailing and weeping in an adjoining room. Going softly to the door she opened it and entered the room. There on the floor, lying prostrate, was an old mother crying and sobbing out her heart before God. When the nurse attempted to give the proper encouragement, she learned the following story from the lips of this old mother: When her only son was a child and seriously ill, and near to death’s door, the mother prayed God to heal him, and said, “God, you must heal.” The Lord sent the answer and from that time the boy was a constant source of trouble, causing continual heartaches. At the time she prayed she had thrown herself on the floor in like manner as the nurse girl now found her, and God heard and heeded her, much to her own sorrow.

Had the condition of her heart been right, she could have prayed, “Not my will, but thine be done,” and the little fellow’s soul would have landed in heaven, borne on the wings of angels, where she could have met him again and with him spent an endless eternity. It pays big returns to be submissive to the will of God, while it brings untold sorrow and heartaches to rebel against His will and wishes.

Defective prayer hinders God from answering, for to answer as prayed would prove detrimental not only to the petitioner but might involve many others. Many times skepticism results when God refuses to answer. The petitioner comes to make himself believe God does not hear and answer, hence becomes an unbeliever. Defective prayer grieves the Holy Spirit. It dishonors the name of Christ and reflects on the love and benevolence of God.

Greater faith in the power of prayer is one necessary condition for greater success in prayer.

As a body of Christians our prayers are many. Somewhere, night and day, prayers are constantly ascending to the throne. But comparatively speaking, to how many evidences of answered prayer can we testify? While many prayers are answered and the mighty power of God is manifested in a miraculous manner, how many more might be answered if conditions were proper, and as they should be.

In a sense it is mockery to open our lips in pretended prayer, for it but tempts God.

More or less skepticism lurks in every heart. This may seem a startling statement. Yet it is evident that sometimes even the stoutest heart, and the one strongest in faith, fails to pray with that firm belief which brings the object of his petition. He rather doubts his request is availing. This is mere skepticism. The so-called skeptic doubts all, even the existence of God, while the one who is not careful of his petitions and does not meet fully the conditions of prevailing prayer may find himself endued with more or less skepticism. We must seek to eliminate every atom of unbelief.

Certain actions or states of heart make the exercise of faith impossible, for instance disobedience. If one is fully obedient to the best of his knowledge one may well expect a more full and complete exercise of faith.

A little girl about four years of age was asked, “Why do you pray to God?” Her reply was, “Because I know He hears me and I love to pray to Him.” Then the question, “But how do you know He hears you?” Putting her little hand over her heart she replied, “I know He does because there is something here that tells me so.”

Anyone knowingly in rebellion against God in any measure can as easily pluck the burning sun from the heavens as to exercise faith. One cannot possibly believe without the Holy Spirit, and He refuses to help a rebel.

In many an instance the “I can’t believe,” if changed to the real truth and outwardly confessed, would be, “I just will not surrender.”

A man complained he had prayed earnestly for a whole year that he might enjoy the comforts of religion. His wise old pastor advised him, “Go home now and pray, ‘Father, glorify thyself.’ ” This no doubt accounts for the many failures: “Ye ask that ye may consume it upon yourselves.”

The last act of a soul making surrender to God is believing. Fully surrendered it becomes as easy to believe as to breathe. Obeying the command—“Repent” instantly helps obey the command— “Believe

ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER

Reverence

Reverence is a necessary requisite to prevailing prayer. There seems today to be a lack of reverence on every hand. Too much of this is found in the house of worship. Such hinders the kind of prayer which takes hold on God.

Reverence is a manifestation of fear mingled with respect and esteem. More godly fear will bring more respect and esteem for God, which will aid mightily in getting our prayers through to God.

God dwells in unapproachable glory. No man has ever seen Him. No man can see God and live. “The glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another” (1 Cor. 15:40). This thought should inspire reverence on the part of everyone. We are as mere insects in comparison with Him.

In public everyone should assume a reverent posture, and every eye should close. When there is whispering and when minds are centered on almost everything but the object for which one is making the appeal we fear God’s great and loving heart must be touched with our irreverence. God help us all to be more reverent.

Adoration

Adoration is the act of allegiance to and homageful worship of a Supreme Being. “Homage” means respect paid by external action. It is one thing to say with the lips we love and adore God. It is quite another thing to act it out.

There is a need of great thoughtfulness as we approach the infinite One. As we meditate on His power, His goodness, holiness, righteousness, justice, love, etc., we learn to adore Him more.

The soul and innermost being should be so absorbed in God that our eyes and ears are closed to outward objects. Such is praying in the Spirit. The soul should be under the exclusive influence of the inward attraction.

Sincerity

“If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me” (Ps. 66:18). How can we expect God to hear when we are insincere? How offensive is insincerity, and yet how common. To ask God to forgive, then go right on sinning, is insincerity. To ask Him to forgive a particular sin and at the same time carry intentions of again committing the same sin is doubly insincere.

Sincerity keeps back no sin but makes full and absolute confession to both God and man, where confession is needed.

Perfect agreement of any congregation means all are perfectly sincere. “If two of you shall agree on earth” (Matt. 18:19), can there be claimed and results may be expected and signs follow. One Achan can spoil perfect agreement in any camp. When we are so sincere in our prayers as to be willing that the most hidden things be brought to light, our prayer is sure to move God on His throne.

Contrition

Contrition of heart is a breaking and melting down in complete humility and yielding. Genuine contrition of heart is a recognition of nothingness. “Without me ye can do nothing,” said Jesus. When we come to the end of self, then and then only, can God take possession and carry to victory, at the same time getting glory to Himself, Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity, and until confession is made that we have gone our very limit and must fail without God, we may be inclined to take too much glory to self rather than to give that glory to God to whom it belongs.

God dwells with him that is of a humble and contrite spirit.

Confession

Unconfessed sin is unforgiven sin. “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God.” Confession in many instances is more needed than the “holier-than-thou” attitude. Confession will in many an instance blast away the last barrier of hindrance to answered prayer and make a clean, clear, smooth path to the throne of God and to His listening ear.

Pride keeps from making a clean sweep through confession. The more holy and the more humble one becomes the more will he confess his past shortcomings. “Confess your [not the other fellow’s] faults one to another, and [then] pray one for another” (James 5:16). As God’s people confess to the bottom so will sinners, and not until then can we expect them to do so.

Restitution

As the Holy Spirit is allowed to flash light into our heart we shall see if we have wronged anyone and that restitution is therefore necessary. Even the old law “which could not take away sin” required restitution (Lev. 6:1-5). Then how much more “the bringing in of a better hope” [Heb. 7:19 which hope is Jesus] requires restitution. The thief has not repented who keeps the money he stole. To cheat someone or take undue advantage in a business deal and fail to restore is unjust and prayers cannot rise above such to the ear of God.

To injure someone by misrepresentation and bitter assailings and not set about to undo the wrong is dishonest. One may have conviction for such, but not repentance. Repentance, with godly sorrow, will easily bring about restitution, at which time and not until then can one have very much faith in his own prayers.

In one of Moody’s revivals a man came to him and confessed to having taken fifteen hundred dollars from his employers. At the time of confession he had but nine hundred and fifty dollars left. Said he to Moody, “Can’t you tell me how to get saved without making confession?” “Then if I must confess,” as Moody told him he must, he asked, “cannot some way be found so I will not have to restore, for,” said he, “if I confess without enough to pay the debt jail stares me in the face.”

Mr. Moody prevailed on him to make full restitution, and he handed over the nine hundred and fifty dollars, which Moody took to the employers. They accepted this money, gladly forgave the whole debt, and all knelt down together. The employers called on God and were gloriously saved, and right there all had a blessed prayer meeting.

Motive

The motive back of an act enters into prevailing prayer. Many times fear of hell is the beginning of trust in God. Desire to get rid of a painful disease was the starting point of transformation in the life of the infirm woman.

The thought of release from disease may be necessary, but the great Physician Himself is more expedient. Self-fear may drive one to his knees, but Christ’s love should be the moving spring thereafter. Having received God’s gift, our whole soul should be a thank-offering. Transformation in us shifts the center from our self to Him. We should love Him more than we love His gifts. Here no doubt is where many fail who seek His gifts in preference to God Himself. The giver is of necessity much greater than his gift; hence one should desire the Blesser more than the blessing.

To continually pray “bless me” is not enough, and such prayers cannot long prevail with God. We are first driven to Him, then drawn by Him.

The starting point is “Lord save us; we perish” (Matt. 8:25). The goal is, “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Gal. 2:20).

To the soul of one who is constantly and continually bringing the needs of others to God in prayer is opened the treasury of heaven. Prayer with pure motive must center on others rather than on self alone.

The Syrophenecian woman cried, “Lord, help me,” but the petition centered on the interests of her daughter. Jesus said, “I seek not mine own honor, but him that sent me.”

In praying for a revival we must not pray with a motive for our own glory, but rather the glory of God, the up building of His cause and kingdom, and the salvation of precious lost souls.

Desire

Prevailing prayer must be accompanied with desire. If we pray for salvation we must desire salvation above all else. If we pray for the Holy Spirit we must really desire the Holy Spirit and not get Him confused with one of His special gifts or works. If we pray for holiness we must desire holiness above possessions.

Desire must be so intense as to swallow us up. “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24). Is it salvation we want? Then desire it with all the heart and the victory is ours. Is it the Holy Spirit? Sanctification? More light? More power? A mighty revival? Healing of the physical body? Then pray earnestly, with a real desire, and victory is not far away.

HUMILITY IN PRAYER

“And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant” (Matt. 20:27). The one who does the most for God is God’s best servant. It requires humility to serve. God loves humility and the humble; therefore when approaching God in prayer, one should do so with utmost humility.

Humility is surely a condition of the prayer of faith. It must precede the bestowment of spiritual blessings.

“He that shall humble himself shall be exalted,” and “whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased” (Matt. 23:12). “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones” (Isa. 57:15). “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face” (II Chron. 7:14). “Taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.” (Ps. 34:8).

One of the most offensive sins to God is pride, self-exaltation, self-worship. True humility is a state of the heart in which we gladly own the truth even though it may seem to be detrimental to our own best interests.

The most acceptable prayer is offered by him who realizes the true contrast between the Supreme Being and himself. To “think oneself to be something” when “he is nothing,” is to fail in attracting the attention of God that an audience may be gained with him. Those who consider themselves so high above their brethren need to exercise care lest before God they would seem to usurp the mediatorial office of Jesus.

The prayer that reaches God comes from the lips of the one who takes the most humble place at the foot of the cross and at the feet of his brethren.

Whom do we address in prayer? Answer, “the high and lofty One” (Isa. 57:15). Permitted to enter the immediate presence of the governor of a State one feels very humble. Allowed to step to the side of the President of the United States and one feels much more humble. Attempting to gain an audience with and converse with the King of kings and Lord of lords, the Highest of the high and lofty ones, how much more humble should one feel than to come to the governor or the President! Yet how little reverence and humility most of us show when coming to Him in prayer!

There is an old adage that “familiarity breeds contempt.” Can it be that the frequency with which we are allowed to come to God in prayer is causing contempt for God, so that we fail to reverence Him as we should? Can it be that this is one reason for so many unanswered prayers today? In His holy presence and the blaze of His glory the greatest will evil His face and tremble.

Winds obey His voice. He chains the angry waves to the shore. He yokes the whirlwind to His chariot and carries a prophet to the skies.

“All things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:13). He knows the very “thoughts and intents of the heart,” and may we not believe that the answer to prayer is granted or withheld, in many instances at least, because of the wrong intent or purpose of the heart of the petitioner, because of a lack of real heart humility?

Three thousand years ago the inspired writer sang, “Who is like unto thee, O Lord.” Nineteen hundred years ago an inspired writer, as he caught a song from the lips of an angel choir, sang, “Who shall not fear thee and glorify thy name.” (Rev 15:4). Humble hearts today are falling on their faces before Him singing to His holy name “praise and honor and glory and majesty.”

A million beats of man’s heart are fainter than one throb of God’s benevolence. A million trees loaded to the breaking point with the most luscious of earth’s fruits but poorly imitate “the fullness in Christ.” A million billions of quadrillions of worlds, all people and feeding on His bountiful supply can never exhaust it. Then what reasons have I for pride in my heart? What reasons for humility?

Yet many, yea, all too many, sit down to their daily meals, three or four times a day and are too proud to humble themselves enough to bow the head and render thanksgiving to Him from whom cometh “every good gift and every perfect gift” (James 1:17).

Those who would prevail with God in prayer must put God first in everything. Man must take second place. May this not sometimes be the lack in some who have no faith except certain ones pray for them? Are they not putting man ahead of God? Are they not reversing the order which God intended?

Exalt God—humble self, is the sure road to answered prayer.

As He taught the disciples, we are to pray first, “thy name,” “thy kingdom,” “thy will,” and second, “give us,” “forgive us,” “lead us,” “deliver us,” and this is the true model of all correct praying (study Matt. 6:9-13).

God’s blessing ever follows humility of heart. A revival of humility must precede a revival of souls. Such a revival is the crying need of God’s church and God’s people today. The proud in heart are fast usurping the place but not the power of the blessed Holy Spirit.

Reasons for humility are:

1. It is enjoined. “Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord” (James 4:10). “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time” (1 Peter 5:6). “Put on therefore . . . humbleness of mind” (Col. 3:2). “Love mercy, and to walk humbly” (Micah 6:8). “Be clothed with humility” (1 Pet. 5:5). “For without me ye can do nothing.”

2. Because of the humble origin and frailty of our bodies. “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Gen. 3:19). While personal beauty and attractiveness are to be appreciated, yet they are not to be worshipped. With more humble praying today and less strife and emulation, individuals will be better; communities will be better; nations will be better; the world will be better.

3. Because of our limited knowledge and consequent liability to error, “The foolishness of God is wiser than men” (1 Cor. 1:25).

Luther said, “I fear the pope, self, more than I fear the pope of Rome.”

4. Because of the moral corruption of an unclean heart. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:9). There is no conceivable wickedness into which man may not fall if left to himself and without God. Yes, “he that covereth his sins shall not prosper” (Prov. 28:13).

5. Because of the sins of our past life, both heart and outward sins, many of us should feel mightily humiliated to have our past thoughts and deeds “open and naked” even before our fellowman. This will someday happen except for the blood of Christ. Not because of our own goodness or our own virtues are we guiltless, neither can we be, but because of Christ’s power and blood were our sins removed “as far as the east is from the west” (Ps. 103:12) and cast into the sea of forgetfulness forever.

6. Because of our absolute dependence, “We brought nothing into the world and shall take nothing out.” “Every good and every perfect gift . . . cometh down from the Father.” For our food, our raiment, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the ground on which we walk, the granite and the stone and the wood with which we build that which we call home, together with thousands of other necessities, we are dependent on Him.

7. Because God blesses the humble and makes them soul-winners.

8. Because pride is to God one of the most offensive sins. “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” (James 4:6).

9. Because the humblest is the greatest. He who would be great, let him be your servant. “He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”

What attitude do the humble take toward others? “In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves” (Phil. 2:3). “In honor preferring one another” (Rom. 12:10). “Subject one to another” (1 Pet. 5:5).

Humility is the very perfume of heaven. Christ “made himself of no reputation” (Phil. 2:7).

If we could only all pray earnestly to see ourselves as God sees us!

The proud depends on and covers his sins: the humble deplores and confesses his. The proud treats his big sins as little sins: the humble his little sins as big ones.

Faith increases as humility increases. Answered prayers pile up as humility grows. Poor lost souls will reap the benefit of our faith through our answered prayer if we but humble ourselves more, and more, and more.

FAITH AND FEELING, OR EMOTION

In Acts 17:27 we read “that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him.”

Many in trying to exercise saving faith are inclined to put feeling ahead of faith. They seem inclined to believe that somehow feelings are more reliable than faith. Neither is this confined to individuals, for some organizations and bodies of religious people hold strongly to and teach such, not only as a witness of saving grace, but as a witness of the infilling of the Holy Spirit.

It is true there is some kind of emotion which goes before saving faith. That is, one is possessed of such long before seeking the salvation of his soul. For instance, he has a feeling of guilt, a feeling of his own sinfulness, a feeling of his offensiveness, and in connection with this a feeling of his need.

Now, one never needs something similar to an electric shock or something to knock him onto the floor in order that he might feel this guilt and sinfulness and offensiveness and lack and need, for it is not an outward or a physical feeling. It is a feeling deep in the soul, a feeling which hurts even more than physical ailments and injuries.

Thus is saving grace accompanied by feelings, not feelings of guilt, sinfulness, offensiveness, lacks, needs, etc., but feelings of innocence, of inoffensiveness, guilelessness, guiltlessness, purity, honesty, sincerity, satisfaction, contentment and pleasure, a feeling of assurance, of convincingness, of gratification. The feeling that God forgives, that He really saves, always follows faith. It never precedes faith, as those who look for physical feelings would try to believe.

Love and reverence toward God incline the will to believe, while feelings against God block belief in Him. To feel that God is unjust, partial, unfair, unreasonable, and too exacting, inclines to unbelief. Also, feelings against any or all of God’s people block belief in God.

Emotions of joy and glory follow the act of faith. It is because of believing that we rejoice, rather than the rejoicing which makes us believe.

As an illustration: A man out of employment and with a hungry, starving family, applies for a position and is assured he can start work tomorrow. He believes and rejoices and has feelings, but he has not touched the job yet. His faith causes feelings, not the feeling of his physical touch or physical sensation, but inward feelings of joy, which always accompany faith.

Someone still inclined to doubt may say, “Yes, but possibly when he gets to the job in the morning he will find he has been deceived and no job awaits him. Therefore his rejoicing was all in vain.” All of which we gladly admit. But with God it is not so, for He “is not slack concerning his promise” (2 Pet. 3:9), for they are everyone “yea and amen” and not one can or ever will fail. Therefore, we may take Him at His word any time, with full assurance, and go right on rejoicing and feeling satisfied.

Emotions of joy and peace are not elements of faith, nor witnesses of faith, but are conditioned on and follow faith.

There is a faith feeling just as there is a fear feeling. “Perfect love casteth out fear” (1 John 4:18). Coming to Jesus, casting our

burden on Him, believing His blood covers our sins and guilt, we now feel free and innocent.

Joy and peace are manward, hence belong to the believer’s spirit. Possibly too many look for the witness of their own spirit in preference to the witness of God’s Spirit. One may have feelings of joy while professing over an ungodly life and a crooked spirit, especially while in the presence of those who are inclined toward emotionalism, and another watching his outward, physical seemingly jubilant feelings would say he really had something, while deep down in his heart he feels and knows God's Spirit does not witness to his purity and sincerity.

The witness of the fruits of the Spirit follow faith just as satisfaction follows the act of eating when one is hungry. The act of eating precedes the emotions as does the act of faith precedes emotion.

After all is said and done one is never satisfied down deep in his heart unless his faith has already taken hold of God for the salvation of his soul and he believes and knows the work is done.

FAITH AND REASON

“And they reasoned with themselves saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say, Why then believed ye him not” (Luke 20:5). “When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answering said unto them, What reason ye in your hearts?” (Luke 5:22).

Faith is not opposed to reason. But when one attempts to reason against that which his faith takes in, he immediately gets himself into serious difficulties.

Reason is a rational act, and correct only when the understanding is enlightened. It can then neither be blinded by prejudice nor led astray by error.

Reason finds its sublimest expression in the act of an intelligent faith. Scientists base their pronouncements on probable facts. The Christian’s faith is based on spiritual realities.

A thing may look reasonable and become an object of faith, and yet not be demonstrable. Many a man has purchased oil stock, the possibilities of which looked very reasonable, and his faith seemingly took in great profits for the future, only to discover his faith was misplaced and the promises were never realized nor demonstrated. But not so with God. His promises appear reasonable, are worthy of all confidence and faith, and in God’s time they are demonstrable.

Saving faith looks beyond the natural to that which is found only in the realm of the supernatural. But it never does lead beyond the dictates of reason.

God commands that which my finite mind cannot comprehend. Believing, we take Him at His word and obey and the object of our faith is soon realized. My finite mind has reasoned that an infinite Being is worthy of being trusted and the worthiness of the trust is justified and proved.

Abraham, rising above the natural into the supernatural, offered Isaac “the son of promise” (Heb. 11:17). In his seed lay the only hope of the whole world being blessed. Earthly wisdom, so-called, said, “Do not sacrifice him.” But God said to offer him up. God-given reason acquiesced and the power of God was manifest.

It is God’s business to take care of His promises. It is our business to trust fully His promises. Having done our part, reason expects God to do His. By what Abraham knew of God, he accounted Him able to raise Isaac “even from the dead.” This reasoning and reasonable faith of Abraham was justified by its perfection and victory.

Unbelievers say the Christian is a fanatic, believing without or contrary to reason. If they would obtain an experimental knowledge they would admit that faith and belief in God are based on the highest reason.

A young infidel lawyer, while in company with General Hamilton and a number of other lawyers at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., ventured a story, the edge of which was ridicule against Christians and their creed. As he finished, instead of a laugh from the General as he expected, General Hamilton gravely asked him if he knew what he was talking about. He then went on to relate how he had also just a while previously made similar remarks while in company with some friends in New York. Arriving home late at night he stood for some time on the doorstep awaiting the servant to open the door. While doing so he had ample time to recall and meditate on the remarks he had but recently made. Humiliated to the depths, he then and there accepted Christ. In turn, the telling of his story so humiliated the infidel lawyer friend that he also repented and turned to God and later related this whole instance to Bishop Chase. His highest reason and better judgment caused his faith to turn Godward.

When God commanded the Israelites to “go forward” it seemed unreasonable to the ignorant multitude, but not so with the well-instructed Moses. His forty years of wilderness meditation and instruction had taught him by experience that the highest reason was that which reckoned God to be able to fulfill every promise. Moses’ knowledge of the supernatural and his acts of faith were in harmony with his reason and as a matter of fact just what his reason dictated.

We learn by experience, through faith, that obedience to God is always reasonable. Faith seldom goes as far as right reason dictates.

Faith is taking God at His word. It finds its reasonable basis in the nature of God—“God that cannot lie.”

An experimental knowledge of God first is not necessary to faith in God. If so, none would ever be saved. “He that cometh to God must [first] believe that he is” (Heb. 11:6). This comes before believing unto salvation.

Knowledge comes of reasoning from the known to the unknown. I am under law. Law presupposes a law-giver. That law-giver must be intelligent. If intelligent, then he is personal. We learn who and what the law-giver is from the nature of his laws. His laws are “holy and just, and good” (Rom. 7:12), hence He must be the same.

Followers of Christ are exhorted to be able to give “a reason of the hope that is in you” (1 Pet. 3:15). No one (God included) can or does expect anyone to believe without a reasonable basis of faith. Every act of genuine faith is based on the most valid of reasons. Faith cannot possibly act without reason. The mind must first be satisfied by investigation. Reason investigates, seeks for, and weighs the evidence; then announces the result to faith. Faith merely receives the report and acts thereon. Thus faulty reasoning creates a faulty faith.

The responsibility of faith’s action is suspended on the findings and report of reason. Reason is the foundation of all certainty. Certainty is never based on unreasonableness. Reason is our security against error. It is God-given—given for the purpose of keeping us in the right and proper channel.

We should all like to have a thorough understanding of every passage of Scripture. While none of us has or ever will have such an understanding, yet we believe every word is true. We reason that if what we know of it is true, then what our finite mind is unable to comprehend must be true also. The source, though beyond our comprehension, cannot be doubted. One betrays ignorance in refusing to confide in God’s Word though beyond man’s understanding. Evidence of having come from God is incontrovertible proof. From any other source it might be doubtful; from God, never.

Truth does not become authoritative until presenting rational evidence. Such was supplied when Elijah said “the God that answereth by fire, let him be God.” To merely make statements of belief, then condemn to eternal torment all who do not accept immediately, is irrational and far from intelligent. What people desire, what they are searching for, is proof. To accept without proof having been given is as irrational as to present beliefs without proof.

In the New Testament accounts God bare them “witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles” (Heb. 2:4). He does the same today.

A perfectly sincere soul is under no obligation to believe without rational evidence. That evidence once furnished, to disbelieve is to be damned . . .

But who shall decide, is asked? Answer: Everyone must decide for himself. This is a fearful responsibility, responsibility as high as heaven, as deep as hell, and as lasting as eternity. Neither can it be escaped, for in possession of the faith faculty and reasoning powers, the responsibility is on us. Because a thing is not understandable is not proof that it is unreasonable. This fact of incomprehensiveness in the very beginning stamps God as the mighty One.

Convince the reason by informing the mind, and faith follows naturally and normally. Paul “reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come” (Acts 24: 25), and his reasoning made kings tremble. He reasoned that “Jesus is the Christ.”

It is not too much understanding, but lack of it that hinders faith. Faith makes the possible real.

TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS OF FAITH

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:3-9).

In this passage we have an assurance of trials of faith as well as triumphs of faith. The trials are termed “more precious than gold.” The end of your faith is “the salvation of souls.” Even though your faith may be tried to the very limit, you may exercise such patience and hope and godliness that others “beholding your good works” may also believe, and therefore their souls be saved, too.

We are always thankful for roses, but seldom for thorns. But who ever saw roses grow on a bush without thorns? The fact is there are many times more thorns on the bush than there are roses. And another fact—the bush grows thorns before roses. Thus it is with faith. In order to know that we have faith we must first be pricked by thorns to test and try its reality. Should we fail in the test, our faith never can put forth the bud which in turn brings out the full blossom.

If we but knew, sometimes thorns would be better for us. If things come too easy they are seldom appreciated. That for which we have exercised the greater faith is, when received, the more highly prized.

Ordinarily trials are blessings sent in disguise. While one is seldom overjoyed during the severity of the trial, how many who have stood true in the test, when the trial is over, when the cloud has passed by, would be satisfied not to have had the test?

Tears make rainbows. Standing beside the great Niagara Falls on a clear, sunshiny day one beholds the spray and mist caused by the mighty fall of the water, but as this mist rises it is suddenly transformed into a beautiful rainbow. Oh, that more saints might be tried, over the sins of friends and loved ones, till the fall of their tears might rise in a mighty mist toward heaven, till God poured His richest blessing, the blessing of salvation, down into the mist, making of it a beautiful rainbow for the world of onlookers to behold. How many, if when tried by an ungodly husband, a nagging wife, a wayward son, a loose daughter, a nosy neighbor, and wagging tongues, would rejoice if they could but become concerned enough and anxious enough and determined enough and burdened enough to cried tears! How many? We ask.

The history of God’s children shows that when tested the most the greater were the victories won. Under severe trial and persecution from the outside those on the inside have manifested great brotherly love, which in turn has formed the mightiest agreement in prayer before God and has brought the blessings of heaven upon them, which but for the trials would never have been realized or enjoyed. Possibly with more persecution today the church of God would, if standing the test even unto death, become the salt of the earth to preserve more souls for heaven’s bliss.

We are so environed by the material that the spiritual is likely to be out of our mind. When put to the test our minds naturally turn to the One from whence cometh our strength. Too many there are who seldom give a thought to God till nearly mired in severe trials, at which time it seems natural to turn to God. We are so influenced and controlled by bodily sense that “to walk by faith” is often a trial of our faith.

If faith is running in the wrong channel the enemy concerns not himself with it, knowing defeat lies in our pathway eventually. If running in the right road the enemy just as easily puts himself on the offensive, placing every possible obstacle in the way.

Triumphant faith must be both subjective and objective—subjective, in that it submits itself to God; objective, in that it carries on a warfare which eventually pulls down the strongholds of the enemy.

One does not always need to see the end from the beginning. “What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter” (John 13:7) said Jesus. This is a clear proof that for the present God intends some divine dealings to be dark. Not seeing the end but exercising faith for the victory, is one of the joys of faith.

A great general plans a campaign against the enemy, determined to gain certain advantages. To reveal every plan to the whole army would defeat his every purpose. Neither does the army expect such a revelation, but with determined effort and dogged persistency, proceed to carry out those plans already revealed.

Thus for our great General and the “Captain of our salvation” to reveal immediately his every plan regarding us, his intention as to when, and where, and how he will answer, would mean defeat of every plan, for probably that which we know the devil also knows. This should be a mighty incentive to trust fully in the One of whom it may be said, “One jot or one tittle” of His prophecies and promises shall not pass away “till all be fulfilled” (Matt. 5:18).

To the Master Mind, the marches and counter-marches are all necessary. The backward march, the setback for the time being, may seem “grievous but afterward yieldeth the peaceable fruits” of joyous victory.

A true soldier is content to be ignorant, having confidence in his commander. He never questions, never refuses.

Our Father, in training us, determines many things in spite of our wishes. And well it is that He thus acts, for these finite minds too often come short of knowing what is best. But His infinite mind well knows and is worthy to be followed.

The loss of Joseph and the taking away of Benjamin were for many a day as dark as midnight to Jacob. After years of trial and test his faithfulness and trust in God were rewarded.

The death and burial of Christ almost shattered the faith of His disciples. “We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel,” said they (Luke 24: 21). Then when assured their trust had not been in vain they exultingly exclaimed, “Did not our heart burn within us?” (verse 32). Triumphant faith, this. More persistent and persevering faith today will make more burning hearts.

Mary and Martha, plunged into the deepest sorrow by the loss of a loved one through the apparent neglect of Jesus, had their seemingly conscientious “if” turned to more than triumphant faith. Their “if” in this instance was a faith “if.”

Methods, ways, and means by which faith is most severely tried are hidden from us. It is the province of faith to carry us beyond perception. We are so weak, our knowledge so limited, God is so strong, His knowledge so unlimited, that for us to be allowed the privilege of being carried just a little way into His omnipotence should inspire us to have a consuming passion for a little more of His great beyond. The joy of anticipation is the ecstasy and blessedness of exercising faith.

Faith, to be victorious, must lift her eye from earth’s dark mysteries to the light of heaven. “Here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come” (Heb. 13:14). Here are tears, sorrows, heartaches, sufferings, partings, deaths: there, none of these things. Thus does inspiration inform us, and we may well believe it.

Dwelling on our feelings or on the stubbornness and wickedness of sinners is a hindrance to faith. No matter how one feels, no matter how stubborn and how wicked a sinner, God is great enough and mighty enough to overcome all, if we but trust Him. And while we are doubting, God is at the same time asking, “Is anything too hard for me?”

The Christian by overcoming personal opposition becomes stronger, wiser, and purer. Every point of vantage gained mounts us higher toward “the mind of Christ.” It is impossible for another to gain this ground for us. We must gain it for ourselves. This is triumph. Heaven tries us by laying responsibility on us.

Christ was made “perfect through suffering” (Heb. 2:10). To make man like Christ is the eagerness of heaven. It cost the dearest price heaven ever spent. It tore the hardest at the heartstrings of God. It required the shedding of the most precious blood earth ever knew. The price was the most ignominious death for the King of kings and Lord of lords, who at the end could say, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” With such unheard of suffering, with such unfathomable cost, with such unequalled humiliation can we not suffer with Him that we may in turn also reign with Him? (2 Tim. 2:12).

Faith goes beyond the senses and steps into the great beyond, and this on the bare testimony of another, the testimony of One who “cannot lie” (Titus 1:2).

Struggles and temptations must be oppressed in order to mature faith. One must resist temptation or perish. The exercise required in resistance strengthens for the struggles and temptations of the future, as the use of different muscles hardens and fits them for the struggle ahead.

Abraham went out not knowing whither, “but staggered not at the promise of God” (Rom. 4:20). In due time he received his “sure reward.”

With all perceptible support taken away and nothing but the naked promise left, then our “strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).

It is while in the furnace that faith is severely tried and thoroughly purified. Spiritual greatness is the child of thoroughly tried and fully developed faith.

With Christ’s visible presence the disciples remained materialistic and selfish. Walking by faith and not by sight they became spiritual, holy, and powerful.

When all is well, when there is no cause for alarm, when the sun is shining brightest upon us, then it requires no faith. But how different when all seems to go wrong, when everything is alarming,

when the sun seemingly ceases to shine and leaves us in midnight blackness.

We have no doubt all had an example of this while riding on the train. As the train speeds on at midday, with the sun shining in all its brilliancy, suddenly we plunge into a dark tunnel where one cannot see his hand before his face because of the blackness and lack of light. Do we then conclude the sun has ceased to shine? No, of course not. But plunged suddenly into the midnight darkness of trial and test, how many remember the sun is still shining? Though “the fight may be hard and the struggle long and fierce” it is well to believe as we sing— “the sun is shining just behind the cloud.”

If Christians will exercise their faith half as much as they do their unbelief the mighty power of God will be manifest in many more instances.

Doubt says, “If thou canst do anything.” Jesus throws the responsibility back by exclaiming, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”

An all-conquering faith appropriates all-conquering power: “According to your faith be it unto you,” said Jesus (Matthew 9:29).

All things possible for God to give through Christ are possible for us to receive by faith. “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth,” says Jesus. Again, “I give unto you power” (Luke 10:19). “Ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (John 15:7).

Unbelief gives God the lie. Christ only can cast out the doubt devil. Weakness of faith is either from want of light or disobedience, or both. To be fully informed of God’s greatness and His willingness, then not trust, is disobedience. It borders the sin of omission. To have great light and refuse to walk therein is a slap at

God. To have the light is the privilege of all in this enlightened age and day of Bibles.

Faith reveals unbelief. As one obtains new faith he begins to realize more and more the extent of his former unbelief, whereas he may have thought he had great faith.

The soldier of Jesus is not afraid of the onslaught of the enemy. The roar of the enemy’s artillery is but the signal and gives holy assurance to engage the foe. A prayer list, coupled with exercised faith, will bring sinners to their knees.

If in the dark and headed for heaven and home let us like a little child clasp God’s hand a little tighter, trusting Him a little more each day, and soon our “little faith” (Matt. 14:31) will remove mighty mountains (Matt 21:21).

THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN A REVIVAL

In Luke 22:31, 32 we read, “And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.”

In this passage we are brought to realize the value Christ placed on prayer as a means of winning a soul. He knew Peter would fall, would backslide, and that he would need to be restored again. He informed Peter of it all, and then as if Christ’s faith had already taken hold of God to the extent there was not even the shadow of a doubt, he informed Peter in so many words he would be “converted”: “I have prayed for thee . . . when thou art converted.” This is believing prayer. A soul-burden for a lost soul, a prayer of faith offered for that soul, and He (Jesus) could then act out that which He taught His disciples, “When ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24).

Had Jesus never prayed for Peter perhaps Peter never would have been saved again. Jesus knew the value of believing prayer.

A prayerless life can never be a soul-winning life. It takes real earnest, fervent praying in faith to win souls. When all else fails this means will win.

Indifference on the part of the Christian church toward prayer is the real curse of today. Because of it thousands of souls are being lost who might otherwise be saved. When the saints once become awakened to this crying need and get cured of their slothfulness and indifference right along this line many hardened sinners are going to fall on their faces. This in turn is bound to set the joy-bells ringing and to start an enthusiasm and zeal among God’s people that nothing else can start.

Moses, the high figure of Old Testament times, was a praying man. So earnest and so zealous was he that he could pray, “Forgive their sin—; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book” (Eccl. 32:32). Such a prayer must be heard and will bring the answer down from heaven.

Paul, the greatest apostle, was a man of prayer. “In prayings, in fastings oft,” was his motto, and so great an enthusiast was he on prayer that he taught his followers, “Pray without ceasing.”

Jesus, with the sick and devil-possessed pressing Him on every hand, took time to pray. He sometimes withdrew Himself from the press and betook Himself into the wilderness where He might be alone with the heavenly Father and there not only pray for a lost world but Himself receive renewed spiritual vigor. If this was necessary for Jesus, then how much more necessary is it for His people and His church today?

Just before the glories of the transfiguration scene, an outstanding inspiration for all ages, Jesus takes His disciples to the mountain-top for prayer, and His main topic while conversing with those from the better world is “His decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31) shortly. Real soul-burden, this. But from this season of refreshing He went forth to bless and help precious lost souls and those in trouble.

Why do not two or three become specially interested in some particular soul who needs Christ and then meet regularly to agree in prayer and plead with God for the Holy Spirit to send conviction like an arrow into that heart? Why, we ask, is it not more often done?

Never, till intense love for the lost leads the church, local or general, to importune at the throne of grace, will we move souls to the foot of the cross. It is said that Finney often slept in the barn that he might be more to himself and the Lord, thereby being enabled to exercise more freedom in prayer. Finney’s success as a soul-winner is the result.

One evangelist, when asked for suggestions as to the best method of promoting a revival said, “Go home and get into your closet and stay there until you are revived.” This no doubt is good advice for most of us. At least here lies the secret of a sweeping revival victory.

Would we be a greater soul-winner? Then we need to get to where we can pray with intense longing for closer communion with God, rather than from a mere sense of duty.

As the warming up in spirituality proceeds it may be as it was in Jesus’ day—“From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him” (read John 6:63-68). But the few quickened by the Word and the Spirit into living firebrands will pray through to victory and sweeping success. Victory obtained in the closet will be seen openly in the church. Oh, for more such victory!

Spiritual paralysis is the result of a loss of first love for the place of prayer. When such paralysis occurs the withering hand of covetousness grips where souls might be gripped. Soul, you who are cooling off in spiritual ardor and zeal and enthusiasm, you who have lost your first love, steal away to the place of secret prayer, before the frigid atmosphere of formality and indifference stills your every move of spiritual activity. Confess your own coldness and call mightily upon God for deliverance for both yourself and your brethren. Such praying may be the means and the only means of arousing your brethren and through them eventually the whole neighborhood and thus snatch them all from the frigid zone of non-spirituality and plant them in the heat of heavenly inspiration.

Like Elijah, pray till the reviving showers begin to fall and the spiritual drought is ended. You, YOU can do it. Start right now and in due time the light showers will become a mighty cloudburst of God’s richest blessings and the torrents of heavenly, refreshing waters will sweep men and women off their feet and hurl them prostrate before God.

Do we really desire to be shaken? Do we want the place about us shaken? Do we desire another Pentecost, with three thousand souls added to the church in a day? Well, they first prayed at Pentecost. One hundred and twenty good, live, wide-awake saints put in a night of earnest prayer and when the sun of another day began to rise the Holy Spirit began to perform, and so great was the performance that “men out of every nation under heaven” ran to the place and were “amazed and marveled” (Acts 2:7). Yes, it caused a great stir and greater curiosity and opened the way for a still greater work of the Spirit.

What was the cause of all this stir and salvation work which even reached to heaven, making the angels rejoice? Wherein lay the secret? But one answer, “They were all with one accord in one place” (Acts 2:1). Their determination to win, their untiring effort, their earnestness and “stick-to-ity” set the breezes of heaven in motion till the intense velocity of heaven itself became “a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting” (Acts 2:2).

Discouraged one, tired and weary with the heat of the day, would you be refreshed by heavenly breezes? Then to the secret closet, and there on your knees before God pour out your soul to Him in prayer till every last atom of coldness, indifference, carelessness, unconcern, apathy, and spiritual lethargy is blown away by those breezes which in turn waft the sweet strains of heaven’s music and you become awakened to your possibilities in Christ Jesus.

A preacher was appointed to a new field of labor. Upon arrival he found spiritual life at low ebb. His appointment was in a rural district, during the hot months, and the beginning of harvest, at which time of all others it would seem impossible to start something for God. But he was one of the kind not to be beaten, and with undaunted courage. The first Sunday he announced a Monday morning sunrise prayer meeting in the church, for an old-fashioned revival and for the conversion of sinners. He then prayed far into the night. Toward morning, tired and weary, he fell asleep. As he awoke the sun was beginning to rise, shedding his bright rays over old Mother Earth. He peeped out the window. The people were gathering in. Teams filled the streets. The church was crowded, and many were unable to get in. And still they came. Many who had heard nothing about the meeting felt an impelling force of curiosity and wonder and hitched up their teams and drove to town. As a result God heard and answered their prayers. A revival broke out which swept the neighborhood, and many were saved.

There never yet was a spiritual awakening that did not come by prayer. Prayer is the key which unlocks the storehouse of spirituality.

The strength of any work is not in the number of laborers or the amount of silver and gold, but in the earnest prayers ascending from devoted hearts.

Moody went to England with no intent whatever of holding a revival, but to make a study of the methods used by the greatest soul-winners. The first Sunday morning after his arrival he was invited to preach in one of the large churches. He had a hard time to preach, feeling there was no response, and the people were to him as if carved out of stone and ice. He really wished he were not there. At the evening service the same thing occurred, till about midway in his sermon a change came, people’s faces lit up, and when at the close of his sermon the invitation was given, hundreds flocked to the seekers’ room.

Moody himself was amazed. It seemed beyond his understanding till the next day when he heard the real reason for the outbreak of such a mighty revival which continued for weeks and swept hundreds into the kingdom.

It seems a certain woman had become an invalid, and realizing how little she had done for God and lost souls, she began to call mightily on God to bless the church. One Sunday noon her sister came home from church very much excited and asked, “Who do you think preached today? Well, it was a young man from America named Moody.” Said the invalid, “I know what that means. There is something coming to the old church. Bring me no dinner, for I must spend the afternoon in prayer.” That very night the change came, and the old church truly was awakened and enlivened.

In a little town in Scotland the Christians spent a whole night in prayer, and the following day a revival broke out and five hundred were converted.

Some years ago a number of students in a great university arose early every morning during the winter to pray for a revival. As a result it is said that every student and every member of the faculty surrendered to God.

An invalid woman residing at Springfield, had been ill bedridden for about seventeen years and almost helpless. She had prayed God for many years to save some particular ones in whom she was especially interested. One day she asked for a pencil and paper and wrote down the names of fifty-seven acquaintances for whom she prayed three times daily. She then wrote to each, urging them to give their hearts to God, and also wrote to her Christian friends, asking them to speak to each of these regarding his soul. In time every one of these fifty-seven professed Christ as his Saviour.

Every church needs and should have those among its number who can prevail with God for a revival and for lost souls. Reader, perhaps you cannot preach; perchance you are no teacher or personal worker; but you can pray, and possibly if the truth were known, the awakening of the church and lost souls of your community are dependent on your prayers. It will be well worth your while to put it to the test, and God will surely honor your every effort.

A client asked a lawyer to foreclose on an old couple who were unable to keep up their payments on the mortgage he held on their home. The lawyer went to the house and knocked at the door, but no one answered. Then he stepped into the hall. The next door was slightly ajar, and through the crack he saw an old lady with silver hair, her head propped high on the pillows. She looked just like his own dear mother appeared to him the last time he saw her alive. He was just ready to knock, when she said, “Come, Pa, begin. I am ready now.” And the feeble, bent old form, also with gray locks, knelt beside the bed. As he began to pray he reminded God they were His submissive children. It was going to be hard for them to be homeless, especially with poor Ma so sick and helpless. Then his voice broke and a thin white hand stole from under the covers and moved slowly and softly over his snow-white head. Then he continued by saying nothing could be harder and sadder than the parting with their three sons whom God had seen fit to snatch from them, except it be the parting of Mother and him in their declining days. He then informed God that this was all brought about because of no fault of theirs, as they had been hard workers and had given to His cause. They had loved Him and had done their best to serve Him, but now were about to lose their home. Then he went on to quote a number of the promises of God made to those who put their trust in Him. In conclusion he thanked God for whatever mercies He saw fit to bestow; then prayed God’s richest blessings on those about to demand justice.

The lawyer went back to his office without having disturbed the old couple, told the story to his client, and together, with the tears streaming down their cheeks, they asked God to help them to be better men, while the client instructed the lawyer to inform “Mother and him” that the claim was met.

“Prayer changes things,” but in how many ways no one knows and we never shall fully realize its benefits to precious souls till at the judgment.

George Muller on board ship in mid-ocean startled the captain by tapping him on the shoulder as he informed him that he (Muller) must be in Quebec by Saturday. This was Wednesday, with such a dense fog they were unable to move, and the captain realized it might continue for days. “It will be absolutely impossible,” said the captain.

Muller replied, “I haven’t broken an engagement in fifty-seven years, and if your ship cannot get me there, God can and will.” He then asked the captain to kneel and pray with him for God to lift the fog.

The captain thought he was crazy, and said his prayer was so simple it would do for a class of children nine or ten years of age. He felt insulted to have to listen to it. Muller had finished praying and the captain was just ready to begin when Muller said, “You need not pray for, first, you don’t believe He will answer, and second, I do believe He has. Go now and look out the cabin door and you will find it is all gone.” The captain did, and to his surprise he found the dense fog entirely lifted. The ship proceeded and Mr. Muller was able to keep his appointment.

The lack of prayer on the part of gospel workers means defeat and the loss of souls. During a revival a tramp came in and sat down. Finally, when opportunity afforded, and while others were testifying as to their experience, he stood up and said, “Father and Mother used to attend this church and were accustomed to sit in this same pew. This was the first church I attended. Father was one of the officers—a deacon. Seven of us boys sat in this very pew in Sunday school class. Our Sunday school teacher, whom we loved very much and respected, invited us to her home on Saturday afternoons to study the lesson, and finally she taught us to play cards. In a short time the lesson gave way to cards altogether. She taught us the new tricks of the game and this finally led on to cigarettes, drink, and gambling. All of us left our homes. At the present time two of our class have been hanged and three are in State prison for life. One is a vagabond like myself, and if the authorities knew I was here they would arrest and put me behind the prison bars.” As he stood there brokenhearted, a woman near the pulpit dressed in mourning arose from her seat, went to where he was standing, and cried, “O God, I am that Sunday school teacher.” She fainted and fell to the floor, and when revived immediately she left the church and was never seen there again.

The prayerless life of church workers is not only useless but a detriment to the life and spirituality of the church. It means the misleading and ruination of precious eternity-bound souls.

THE GETHSEMANE PRAYER

“Then cometh Jesus with them into a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then said he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matt. 26:36-39). Read also Mark 14:33-35.

Here we have the grand climax to soul-burden. No one ever knew the value of a soul as Jesus knew it. No one ever felt the weight of lost souls as He felt it. No one ever has or ever can feel a burden for souls like that. Nearly thirty-four years he had lived as others lived on this earth. About four years He had labored tirelessly and incessantly for the salvation of souls. He knew their salvation depended on His death, not a natural death, but a death brought about by the spilling in a cruel manner of His own precious blood. Now as the weight of it all falls upon Him, while His mind dwells upon the thought, it seems almost more than He can bear.

“He began to be sore amazed.” Seeing the multitude of lost souls on every hand He becomes alarmed. He is astonished at the indifference of His own disciples who can repeatedly fall asleep while surrounded by souls on the brink of hell. He is awed at His own human desire to shrink from the sacrifice of His own life. For months He had talked about that which was to occur. Repeatedly He had warned His disciples, that when the time arrived they might be prepared, but now as the time approaches and He is brought face to face with and is on the verge of sacrifice, He finds it different from merely talking about it. Oh, that others might learn this same lesson. That they might really make more sacrifice, even the sacrifice of life itself if only souls can be saved, instead of merely boasting of intended action.

But now as He faces the issue, will He yield? Is it going to be too much? Will His humanity overcome His spirituality and eternal desires? After all, has His teaching been merely superfluity and is all to be lost?

Hear Him as He pours out His heart to His Father, “Not my will, but thine.” It was as if He had prayed, “Father, I’m in a ‘strait betwixt two.’ It involves bodily suffering and sacrifice. On my part I hardly feel competent to decide what is best; hence I leave it to your judgment.” Mighty humility, this.

Hear Him as He cries, “Let this cup pass.” But what was this cup? Was it the suffering He was about to endure on the cross because of a pierced side, and nail-riven hands and feet, and a lovely brow torn and shredded and bleeding from the cruel crown of thorns? Was it the awful humiliation before His enemies and those who had placed confidence in Him? We hardly think so. “This cup” no doubt involved His terrible soul-agony, His great soul-burden. He desired to drink the cup to the last dregs. To drink it quickly and have it all over with, not for His own good or His own relief, but souls were dependent and He was anxious for them.

“This cup” was the hiding of His Father’s face, caused by the blackness of sin, that blackness which is to cut off all sinners from God throughout an endless eternity, that blackness which is the very core itself of eternal death for a sinner. Oh, the awfulness of that short period of being cut off from communion and contact with God. It was more than Jesus could bear. Then what of those who because of sin will be cut off, not for just a few short minutes, but for a long, long, never-ending eternity? Jesus was glad to have the moment pass as quickly as possible. This was His taste of death for mankind.

“This cup” is the awful penalty of an insulted and broken law.

Mercilessly and vehemently the black tempest of soul-agony lashes His shuddering nature. It seems impossible to endure the fearful strain, and temporarily He yields to the weakness of the flesh. Would He be justified in yielding permanently? Has He not as much right to yield from suffering and heartache as have His disciples?

Hear Him as He says, “Now is my soul troubled” (John 12:27). His innermost being was troubled. He was troubled to the depths of His heart. Troubled at what? At death? No, “for this cause came I.” What then? All that is involved in that comprehensive term “this hour,” “this cup,” for on its outcome depends the destiny of souls, not a few souls, but all souls.

His flesh shrank from the stunning and crushing agony of crucifixion. To shrink from absolute subjection to the Father’s will would be worse. For the time being He felt His way between two dread alternatives. But He was not long deciding. The love of souls, eternity-bound souls, conquered in “Father, have your will.” This was genuine soul-burden.

He prays once, twice, three times. Each time the surges rise higher and beat more tempestuously and vehemently and overwhelmingly. Then an angel appears, strengthening Him. But what for? For death? No, for greater soul agony. His earnestness drags Him into “agony” and as His agony increases His earnestness increases until His agony (for lost souls) is so intense, “his sweat was as it were great drops of blood” (Luke 22:44).

It is said that many times men have, while enduring intense suffering and unbearable agony, sweat blood. Here is the Saviour of men agonizing in prayer for a lost world; not suffering for Himself, but suffering for you and suffering for me. Wonderful Saviour! Marvelous prayer! Oh, that we might all get to that place of intense, agonizing soul-burden, till hearts were poured out to God in prevailing prayer.

Had He suffered less, the atonement would have been a failure. Had He suffered more the suffering would have been unjust. While His suffering could not be alleviated, yet strength was administered for endurance of even a hotter and fiercer struggle. The struggle convulsing the inner man sends, as it were, the blood oozing from the pores of the outer man. Such pressure brought to bear by the inner man today will compel the outer man. Too many are saying, “My heart is in it, but somehow I just cannot force myself to do it.” This is the wrong logic, for if the heart, the inner man, impels, there will be no compulsion of the outer man. The outer man is perfectly and absolutely obedient to the inner man. Once get our hearts, our very inner man, burdened for souls, and our bodies will take up the march.

As He cries in this marvelous prayer, “Thy will be done,” the victory is His and the victory is the world’s. “I will suffer,” is the grand climax of Gethsemane. “It is finished,” is the triumphant shout of the cross. “I come not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” This is true prayer. “What thou willest, I will” is genuine, prevailing prayer.

To reach this place may, and usually does, take agonizing prayer, but when once reached the victory is sure and the answer certain.

If it was necessary for Jesus to agonize in prayer, then how much more necessary is it that we do so? More agonizing, more earnestness, more intenseness, more seriousness, more strenuous effort in prayer, is the need of the hour. Such praying will bring more victories, more souls to Christ, more power among His people, and more healings.

A young girl who was a real leader and loved by all who knew her came home from college and was urged by her pastor to give her heart to God and get saved, that her influence might be used to win others. She requested that he do no urging until the revival which they were planning to hold later on had begun. When that time came she said she could not give up the dance, cards, theaters, and the society in which she mingled, although she really did desire to get saved. She finally consented to do so, though, provided her father and mother, who had been leaders and officers in the church for years, would also get saved. They refused, although admitting they were not living for God and had not done so for many years, saying it was uncalled for to stand the humiliation after so long a time as professors.

The revival closed and that same night the pastor was called on the telephone and urged to rush to the hospital, where he found this girl who had been taken suddenly ill with appendicitis. She was in the operating room before the pastor arrived and shortly the surgeons announced she was dead. Later in passing the cemetery at night this pastor heard bitter wailing and sobs of a broken heart. Upon investigation he found the father of this girl lying prostrate on the grave and crying that his girl was lost and in hell and he was to blame.

But his wailing and agony, like that of many others, was too late. He should have spent much time in agonizing prayer, from a pure heart, for the salvation of his dear daughter ere the death angel knocked.

But here is Jesus in the garden agonizing for the lost, His enemies, and those who had despitefully used Him.

A slave by the name of Cuff was informed by his master that he (the master) was so poverty-stricken he must sell him. The infidel buyer was informed that Cuff was an ideal slave in every way with the exception of one bad habit, and that was his habit of praying every night and morning before and after his day’s work. The infidel replied that he would cure Cuff of that in a hurry. The next morning, finding Cuff on his knees praying to God, his new master tied him to the whipping-post and began lashing till poor old Cuff was torn and cut to the bone and bleeding. The infidel’s wife was touched with pity. So greatly was the flesh on poor Cuffs back torn and shredded and so great was the loss of blood she feared he would die at the post. She begged her husband to quit. This only angered him the more and he threatened, unless she at once went away she would suffer the same fate. Then he went to lashing again till he fell from sheer exhaustion. Cuff that day went to his work and although lacerated and suffering intense agony, performed as best he could his honest duties.

That night the infidel was taken ill suddenly and suffering intense agony he called for someone to pray for him. His wife thought of poor Cuff and sent for him. When the slave arrived he prayed such an earnest prayer for his cruel master that the master was instantly healed. Together he and his wife yielded to Jesus and were saved. Jumping to his feet, master and slave embraced, poverty and riches met, white and black united, infidel and saint became one. Then together, up and down the land, they went praying, praying, and preaching Christ.

HOW TO OFFER PREVAILING PRAYER

The question is often asked—How may I get hold of God in prayer? How may I prevail with God in prayer?

We offer ten suggestions which by no means exhaust the list, yet may be well worthy of our special attention.

First, be dedicated to God and consecrated to do His will. If not dedicated fully to God our desires are quite likely to be selfish and our requests not so much to the glory of God as for our own glory.

Unless consecrated to do His will when once His will is revealed (and we may rest assured He will reveal His will whenever vital) one may not expect God to show much interest.

Second, “be filled with the Spirit.” Eph. 5:18. And this means more than a mere profession without a definite infilling of the Spirit. “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his” (Rom. 8:9). A real desire, coupled with a real earnestness for the infilling of the Spirit, is absolutely necessary to the accomplishment. There is by far too much shallow work along this line. Too many are falling short, are stopping before receiving the definite, know-so infilling. Once filled, it is important, vitally important, that one keep filled. It is very easy to allow the Spirit to leak out, in fact so easy that the leak has many times sapped that animated, life-supporting, life-containing, essential, and indispensably abundant spiritual life before one is really aware of that which is taking place. Many are in a backslidden state without a realization of it, which is the saddest part, and are wondering why their prayers do not go through. Again we say, be filled, and keep filled with the Spirit.

We know not for what we should pray except the indwelling Spirit illumine and teach.

Third, maintain uninterrupted fellowship with the Father and with His Son. Spasmodic fellowship is not sufficient. And let us not forget that to have fellowship with God and with His Son we must “walk in the light, as he is in the light.” By so doing we really have “fellowship one with another” (1 John 1:7).

To be out of harmony with and opposing God’s people is to be out of harmony and fellowship with God and His Son. Beloved, this is one of the necessary requisites; it is one of the essential requirements of prevailing prayer. “Where two are agreed” is the divine condition. This means that in prevailing prayer one agrees with another who is in harmony and fellowship with God and with His Son.

Fourth, obtain evidence from God or from His Word that the request is pleasing to Him. It is wrong to pray for anything which might in any manner be displeasing to God. To do so means defeat before beginning the petition. On the other hand, a petition which is pleasing to God may be heard and answered long before presented.

Fifth, cherish your desire till fanned to a flame. Indifference, carelessness, coolness, apathy, and lack of earnestness, bring failures. Become enthusiastic, and if the petition be worthy, God will also become enthusiastic. Then fan the flame till your whole being, soul, body, mind, and spirit are excited and stirred and kindled and provoked to a flaming, flaring torch which reaches heaven itself. To arouse God we must first be aroused over the need of answer to our petition.

Sixth, lovingly resolve to have an answer at any cost. It may be expensive to receive the answer. Many times the cost is more than we care to pay. But loving and desiring the answer more than anything else on earth, yea, than the whole world itself, is vitally necessary, if lovingly resolved.

Seventh, claim the answer at once. The longer one prays for a thing without a living faith the harder will it be to prevail. It seems to be one of the laws of nature that when making no progress one becomes discouraged and disheartened and faith becomes stagnant. Our faith should take hold of God at once for the answer, while we are submissive to His own good will and pleasure in giving the answer.

Eighth, on your knees, practice what you learn. If in sending up a petition we, while on our knees, learn it is not God’s will, let us be submissive, not defiantly rebellious, but limpidly pliant and yielding.

Ninth, be patient but persistent. “Let patience have her perfect work.” Persistence will win if persistent in the right spirit. Remember the neighbor who, having company, needed bread (Luke 11:5-10). Remember the widow and the unjust judge (Luke 18:1-8).

Tenth, remember there is no royal road to prevailing prayer. The one who wins in prayer will have proved himself worthy of being answered. He will at some time have persisted in reaching God’s ear. He will constantly and continually keep on the highway of prayer.

THE POWER OF JESUS’ NAME

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you” (John 16:23). “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:19).

God is the great treasure-house of the universe. He is the huge fountainhead of all good. Sin locked from mankind this treasure-house. It is sin that seals against humanity this fountain.

In this treasure-house are “riches untold.” Never has it entered into the heart or mind of man the value of God’s riches. Man can reckon only from that which his finite eyes behold. The gold and silver of earth look big to him and proud would he be to possess them all. The sun is estimated as at ninety-three million miles from the earth, and to be 110 times the size of the earth. If this space were packed with solid gold it would not touch the riches of God.

Such is the value man places on gold here that he obtains a small piece and wears it as an ornament. Up in heaven there is so much of greater value and so little room for it and precious stones that they take the rubies, the diamonds, the sapphires, the emeralds, the jaspers, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, amethyst, sardonyx, sardius, and all the other stones of great value and throw them down for foundation for the city; then the gold is taken and laid over these for pavements of the city, and the angels and redeemed of earth trample it under foot, so small is its value compared with God’s wealth. If true and faithful, we become joint heirs with Christ and heirs of God and all these riches are ours.

But it is one thing to know they are ours while it is quite another to have access to them in time of need. But God be thanked, through Christ we again have access (Eph. 3:12).

From this fountainhead flow mighty rivers of refreshing, invigorating, reviving, reanimating, freshening, and bracing waters of life. All may have access to and be benefited by these riches through Christ and His precious name. Outside of His name there is no access. In His name all may have access.

In the name of Jesus we have the means and the only means of gaining an audience with God in order to present to Him our various petitions.

The name of Christ is the symbol of all He is and does. The privilege of using His name in prayer implies the right of all His privileges. What a privilege it is, yet how few give it even a passing thought. His privileges become my privileges. Said the poet, “What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.” How often we sing it, yet with what little significance!

The privilege of using His name is the privilege of using His authority and His power. “He spoke with authority,” and so may we if we get from God our thoughts through His name. He has “all power in heaven and in earth,” which becomes our power through His name.

Asking in His name implies oneness of association and interest. Being His partner, a joint heir with Him, we become one with both Him and His interests. We are associates with Him. His interests are our interests. Our interests become His interests. What we do, what we say, what we ask for, is for His interest.

Discarding the merits of our own name, we must rely solely on the merits of His name. So little, so insignificant do we feel ourselves to be, that we dare not approach the God of heaven and earth in our own name. But in His name one need not blush or fear to gain an audience.

To be entitled to the use of His name in prayer one must be completely identified with Him. It must be an established and recognized fact, established by an application of the blood of Christ, and known and recognized by both God and ourselves.

Such asking is in the interest of His kingdom and is in conformity with His will. This is the only way the promise, “Whatsoever ye ask in my name I will do it,” may be claimed.

Coming into perfect accord with Christ our petitions fasten upon objects of interest, not so much to self, but objects of interest to Him. Intense longings imparted by the Holy Spirit are accompanied with the Spirit’s discernment. Thus our petitions accord with His will and His desires. Being filled with the Spirit the desires of the heart run to objects dear to the indwelling Spirit.

The privilege of using Christ’s name is the privilege of Christ’s power of attorney. Given the power of attorney, the one possessing such power acts in the place of the one from whom he receives such power. The recipient’s acts, his agreements, his covenants are as binding on the party who gave the power as though that party acted and agreed and covenanted himself. This is done on various occasions when one has business transactions in a distant state or another nation and cannot be there in person.

A big business man once failed in New York. He had been prosperous and his credit good wherever his name was mentioned. But reverses came and unable to meet his obligations he went into bankruptcy. Now, his credit was gone and he was unable to purchase any goods in his own name and to his credit. His millionaire brother took pity on him, came to his rescue, and placing confidence in him allowed the use of his own name that his brother might purchase goods and continue in business. Now he could purchase unlimited amounts of merchandise so long as he purchased in his brother’s name. Occasionally for a joke he would attempt to make purchases in his own name, only to find he could obtain nothing. The merchants would merely smile and turn him down. Then when he asked they be sent in his brother’s name the request was promptly met.

Thus it is in the use of Christ’s name. There is no need to plead our own merits. It is useless to inform God that I am some great one, and more than useless to tell Him I am more entitled to His ear than someone else. A deaf ear is turned. But come in the name of Jesus and all heaven is immediately alert.

Thus it is that Christ gives to us, through His name, special power of attorney, and through this, access to the storehouse of God’s riches. Then we can pray in His name and for His sake.

His sacrificial atoning merit is our only ground of a right of petition. Asking without relying on such is like an attempt to draw money out of a bank with no deposit. Sometimes someone hands to us a check in payment for that which they owe us. We deposit it and in a few days the bank returns the check, to which is attached a slip marked, “No funds.” This is always a disappointment.

But “in His name” gives access to the bank whose resources, no matter how heavily drawn upon, never run short. There is never a time of “no funds.” It may always be relied upon.

In proportion, as we appreciate Christ shall we trust Him to forgive and give. Even the Holy Spirit “shall not speak of himself,” but “shall glorify me” said Jesus (John 16:13, 14). Then how much more do we have need to glorify Him!

At times so intense is love that it causes the language of the lover to fail. At such times merely to repeat and breathe the beloved name is enough and gives the proper satisfaction. How many have experienced when in love being in a crowd and not hearing what was being said except to catch the name of his lover, which immediately sent a thrill through the whole being, as nothing else could! Repeat the name of the one we love dearest and most and a thousand thoughts of his virtues and what they mean to us flash through our mind. The name stands for all the possessor of the name means. Jesus means all to God and heaven. He means all to us; so we need not fear about our petitions going through.

No doubt the poet knew something of the value of that name when he said, “Jesus, lover of my soul.”

On the resurrection morn, Christ in one word opened his heart—“Mary,” while Mary in the eager rush of her spirit poured out her heart in one word, “Master” (John 20:16).

The name of Christ stands for every needed good.

There is not a thing which is good for us and of which we really stand in need but that we may have through Christ. Lay a gold coin on the counter of any store and receive bread, meat, or clothing. In the same manner lay Christ’s name on the counter of Heaven’s storehouse (the throne of grace) and receive pardon, purity, power, and the Holy Spirit, healing for the body as well as the soul, in fact all of those things for which we have “need” (Matt. 6:8). Oh, the wealth and the riches at our command if joined to and one with Christ, with power of attorney to use His precious name!

“Precious name, oh, how sweet, hope of earth and joy of heaven,” as the poet said, should ring constantly and continually in our hearts and minds.

Christ is the channel through whom flows the river of life. There is no other way to life and the blessings of God for “there is none other name under heaven given among men” (Acts 4:12) whereby and through whom to obtain such. Not even earth’s wealthiest, even though they would open to us their storehouse of riches and wealth, could touch the borders of “the riches in Christ Jesus.”

In His name we have a right to ask for and receive all He purchased for us by His blood. And that includes all for which the heart and soul of man craves. Even though a man heap to himself riches and all of earth’s goods it never does satisfy the soul, the inner being of man. While many times he does not know it, yet the very heart of man is mightily craving that which he could receive in a moment of time, if he but knew, through Jesus. Everyone may drink and be satisfied, yes, really and truly satisfied. Not to seek after and receive is to trample under foot His blood and keep one’s soul harassed and in torment.

Coming in His name we may with the telescope of faith sweep the whole firmament of His precious, neverfailing promises. To do so is to appropriate them and put them to use for ourselves and our brothers and for the glory of God.

These promises are all mine because Christ is mine. In Christ every blessing within the compass of infinite love to give becomes ours. His love takes us into equal heirship to “unsearchable riches.” His right becomes our right.

All is ours in Christ’s name if we abide in Him. “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (John 15:7). One can neither in this world nor the world to come afford to be without Christ and thus without access to His unlimited riches and abundant love.

Christ has deposited in the bank of heaven unlimited treasures—treasures of love, of pardon, of power, of peace, of joy, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, grace, patience, kindness, devotion, charity, affection, righteousness, godliness, humility, uprightness, manliness, justice, mercy.

Says one, “I lack and desire more patience.” Then go to the storehouse of Jesus, where it awaits you. Another is saying, “I desire more love, more joy, more gentleness.” Then away to the storehouse of Jesus and they are all yours in His name. No Christian needs to lack; no one needs to skimp himself. The supply is at your command, created for that purpose, and awaiting your asking in Jesus’ name.

Every promise of God is a sight draft on His bank. Any bank will honor a sight draft, but much sooner, and in every place, whether desert or city, mountain-top or valley low, hill or plain, at home or abroad, in heaven or on earth, among friends or foes, saints or sinners, we may expect God to honor His draft of promise. His sight draft is good for face value, at any time, in any place, and under any conditions, because it has the signature of Jesus written in His own all-atoning blood.

Every one of His promises is ours by birthright. We may everyone have them to hold and to carry wherever we go. We may cash them wherever and whenever we have need. The only restriction is “if”—“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you.” (John 15:7). If so, His signature is always honored.

There is no power equal to the power of His name. It commands respect wherever it is carried. Even the heathen are overcome and stand in awe at the mention of such a holy name.

A missionary in India was searching for a certain tribe. His search took him through the jungles and through the midst of other savage and hostile tribes. Thinking himself to be alone he was suddenly surrounded on every hand by a band of savages, who instantly raised their spears every one of which was pointed directly at his heart. They were making ready to throw the spears, when drawing forth his violin which he was carrying with him, the missionary closed his eyes and began to sing, “All hail the power of Jesus’ name.” He sang on, not daring to open his eyes again till he had reached the third verse and had sung, “Let every kindred, every tongue . . . crown him Lord of all,” when every spear had dropped and tears were falling from every eye. He was invited to their homes, and he labored among them for two and a half years with great results.

No devil can get such a powerful hold on a soul that the power of Christ’s name cannot cast him out. Yea, before that name every knee must bow and every tongue confess.

No one has a right to plead His promises but those who obey and live for and in Him. All others are forgers.

The writer was one time given a hasty call to the home of a family of God’s people. Upon arrival we found the young mother in a serious condition, unconscious, and with her head drawn backward and rolling from side to side. Suddenly this rolling stopped and she became as white as death. We anointed with oil and prayed the prayer of faith according to James 5:13-16. Having asked God, in the name of Jesus, to heal, we felt assured He heard and would answer. But now we realized she had stopped breathing and that the icy hand of death had laid hold upon her. But believing God had given us the assurance of victory, we laid on hands the second time, asking again in the name of Jesus for her complete restoration to life and health. At this time she began breathing and shortly told us the following:

In the distance appeared a bright light, far beyond the dazzling brightness of the sun and from this light came floating a multitude of young angels dressed in white and bearing harps, upon which they were playing. Their music was so far beyond earthly music that there was no comparison. As they reached this sister these angels separated, half on one side, and the other half on the other side, forming a pathway leading up to the light. This sister started toward the light, up the pathway, when shortly she seemed to hear our voice saying, “You cannot go to heaven just yet,” at which time she turned her face about and came back, and her spirit again entered her body while we were yet in prayer.

The name of Jesus has conquered even death itself.

We were requested to visit a young woman at an insane asylum, whom we learned had got under the power of a religious delusion. Finding a clear case of devil possession, we laid on hands, praying the prayer of faith, and in the name of Jesus, commanding the devil to let loose and come out. He immediately obeyed, and the poor girl was restored again to her right mind and to her family. All praise be to the name of Jesus forever!

SECRET PRAYER

“But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly” (Matt 6:6).

Perhaps too many are desirous of the open reward, viz., the name of being real spiritual, who are leaving undone the first or primary cause of deep spirituality, which is secret prayer and communion with the Father in heaven.

Christ is our great teacher and our example of how and when to pray. He frequently withdrew from the disciples and from the multitudes that He might be alone with God, there to pour out His heart in secret prayer, there to tell God of His trials, His heartaches, His temptations, etc., and in turn to receive grace and comfort for the needs of the hour. Surely God rewarded Him openly, before the whole world, before the people of all ages and climes and races and colors.

God can best teach us when alone with Him, shut out from the confusion and strife of every-day life and its surroundings, with its multitudinous cares and worries. Every Christian should have a secret place to meet Him and then the more important thing, meet Him in that place. Meet Him in the “secret place of the Most High.” Abraham, alone with God, fell on his face and cried, “I am but dust and ashes” (Gen. 18:27). In the presence of the Almighty One, alone with Him, one feels and admits his smallness, his nothingness, and therefore his heart and soul and whole being are made to feel humble. He is bound to be rewarded openly by the very act and attitude of humility. A proper sense of His majesty will never fail to produce a sacred awe. If reverence is ever needed it is in the presence of God alone, and if one fails to show it there he never will show it openly. The habit of reverence is formed while in the secret place with God so that when appearance is made in public a reverential attitude follows. We ask—is lack of this secret communion one of the main reasons of today’s lack of reverence for God’s house? This is worthy of our attention and study.

Praying in public merely to be heard can be cured by much prayer in secret. If not interested in communing with God in secret, how can we expect to do so in public? No interest in private worship but a big public show of interested adoration is hypocrisy and that of the worst sort. God is displeased with such, and God’s frown is hell; His smile is heaven.

Sincere prayer offered from within the temple of God, and “ye are the temple of God” (1 Cor. 3:16), is the gate to heaven. It makes the pathway smooth and pleasant, giving us such an anticipation of future and eternal bliss that one following this pathway will eventually land within heaven’s walls.

God’s whole nature is opposed to sin, and pride, and arrogance. Usually either sin in the heart, or pride in the life, or arrogance or defiance in the nature, is that which keeps one from secret communion with his Father in heaven.

Many have secret sins which should be confessed to God in secret and can hardly be confessed in any other manner. Not only public acts of crime are brought to judgment but every secret thing. “Nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest” (Luke 8:17). Alone with God, from whom nothing is hidden, is a sacred thought. He it is who “searches the heart and tries the reins.” He can best do so in secret.

God’s all-seeing eye is a flame of fire, before one flash of which the heavens and earth flee away. How great His justice, power, wisdom, and love. “But the greatest of these is charity [love]” (1 Cor. 13:13). To be alone with heaven’s greatest Lover, yea with Love itself, is a mighty privilege. As one enters the secret place with “a broken and contrite heart” God’s sterner attributes are overshadowed by His tender and infinite love. “The Lord pitieth them that fear him.” “He remembereth that we are dust” (Ps. 103:13, 14).

Alone with God means shut in from the world. It implies being shut up with God. Above everything else we desire to be alone with the one we love most. Jesus has informed us we should love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. Does the present generation love something else better than it loves God? Is the lack of private devotion an evidence of the little love for God? God help us to pour out our devotion and adoration and love and praise and reverence and admiration in secret worship, lest God be justified in believing we love something or someone else better than we love Him.

Loving Him with all the heart, the secret place of meeting with Him becomes the dearest of all earth’s spots. It is there we commune with heaven itself; there, where no eye witnesses the meeting; there, where no ear listens to the whispered words of love and admiration; there, where there is no embarrassment. Such is an ideal interview between a loving Father and His trusting child. Without reserve the heart there opens wide for divine inspection, while its innermost secrets are bared to His tender gaze.

Some thoughts, troubles, and confessions can be told only to the truest friends. Many of us have had our secrets betrayed by those in whom we placed absolute and implicit confidence, till we almost came to believe no one could be trusted with a secret. But if the whole world has failed us, and friend and foe alike frown upon us, then we are privileged to go to our Father, the Friend of friends, in whom we may feel perfectly safe to confide. Reader, when tempted and tried and weary and worn and feeling it would be a big relief to be able to unburden your heart to some trusted friend, just steal away to the secret place of His presence, unload it all on Him, as you would on a man or woman, and see what instant relief and comfort are yours. Try it out and thereafter you will feel more like confiding in Him than any other. Furthermore, there will be no danger of the secrets leaking out.

No one can or will sympathize like Jesus. Some might if they could, but they cannot do so. In the secret with Jesus one can crawl into His strong, loving arms and there bury his face in Jesus’ bosom, as the troubled, injured child does with a tender, loving mother. Many of us have longed to rest in the bosom of mother once more, just for a few moments, there to pour out our troubles and sorrows in turn for which we receive those loving caresses and gentle words of comfort. But Mother is not here now. She has gone to be with Jesus, upon whose loving breast she finds comfort. May we not expect that if He is allowed to do so He will take us in one arm and her in the other, while lavishing His loving caresses, which never fail to soothe and comfort the aching heart?

Jacob wrestled alone, and at night, and prevailed. If one really desires to learn to pray and how to pray the best place to be is alone with God. There it is one learns to stick to it and to stick till one has prevailed and the blessing is in his possession.

Luther, with tremendous responsibility bearing down upon him, like the weight of worlds, could afford to take three hours daily for secret prayer and devotion. Said he, “I have so many duties before me to be performed this day that I cannot afford not to take three hours for secret communion with God.” Through prayer he discomfited and paralyzed his legion of foes, sending them into oblivion.

“Thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly”—one hundredfold of blessings and victories in this life and in the world to come “life everlasting.” It is in the secret place of prayer that heaven comes down to earth to meet our souls, while above, shining scribes are making up our credits, filing away our titles and inheritances, piling up nuggets of gold in the heavenly treasury, polishing the crown of life, decorating with jewels the scepters of power, preparing the mansions in God’s house, building flights of steps for our future ascension, placing a seat beside His throne that we may reign with Him forever and ever, and this all for the one who receives his reward in secret, rather than desiring to be seen of men and honored here below.

Too few know very much about the secret place of the Most High. Secret, prevailing prayer is the language of a devoted, spiritual church. Coming from glowing hearts of such, secret prayer will move mountains. Such is the blessing of the fellowship of supreme affection. Such affection glows as the fires of a furnace.

A missionary, after years spent in Russia laboring for Christ and lost souls, returned to his old home. His father and mother had both passed on to be with Jesus. One of his brothers was living at the old homestead. The furniture was arranged and stood in the same places as when he was a boy at home. He was permitted at night to stay in his old boyhood bed in the same room in which he formerly slept. But he could not sleep. The night passed by while he lay meditating on the old home life. Old familiar scenes came up before his mind of father, of mother, of brothers and sisters playing together. As the morning light began to dawn he looked out the window and there he beheld the very spot where mother, years before, had said, “Come, my dear, kneel down with me and I will pray.” This was his mother’s secret place of prayer. Then he burst into tears, hurriedly dressed, and knelt on the same spot and thanked God for a praying mother.

A miner of Yorkshire one morning had family worship and started in company with four others to the mine. They were engaged in opening up a new pit which during the forenoon caved in, catching them all. Four of them finally extricated themselves, but this man was buried up to his neck and another immediate slide was imminent. They worked desperately to free him but found it impossible and he directed them to place a stone so as to protect his head, saying, “Escape for your life, for it is well I am taken instead of you, for I am ready and you are not.” The few remaining moments were spent in prayer and the earth fell, burying him alive.

UNITED PRAYER

“Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:19, 20).

Agreement in prayer is more than just merely for two to get down on their knees together and say a few words, or petition God for some particular object. Enemies could do that. Those who have bitter feelings toward each other can in times of distress and of sudden need kneel together, repeating practically the same words. But such is not agreement.

Perfect agreement is that in which the spirits of all concerned blend perfectly with the Spirit of the Father and the Son. The Father and Son are one. They are in perfect accord and harmony. Each has the mind of the other.

“Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one” (John 17:17, 19, 21-23). Here is perfect accord; genuine agreement. The Father and Son are one in every way. The Father loves the Son. The Son loves the Father. The Father is all wrapped up in the Son. The Son is all wrapped up in the Father. The Father’s conduct has been such as to command the greatest possible respect of the Son. The Son has conducted himself in such a manner as to win the utmost respect of the Father. No one could possibly drive a wedge between them. They are one and inseparable. Now, to further bind this union, Jesus sanctifies Himself. Instead of two in perfect agreement there are now three—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Blessed trinity. Holy trinity. Each in the others, and this willingly. Willing to be in the others and willing that the others be in him. This is an agreement of the innermost parts, an agreement of spirit. In such agreement there is power.

“Sanctify them that they may be one as we are” is the prayer of Jesus. This means that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit take up their abode in the heart of man. Here is another sacred trinity: “I in them, and thou in me.” Father, Son, and sanctified one. But this is also more than a trinity, for these three are further united by the Holy Spirit. Hence instead of a trinity there is now a union of four—Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and the sanctified person. Surely this forms a union. Oh, the responsibility laid on those professing to be sanctified and filled with the Spirit. In this state we have a strong union of saints. Under these conditions the Holy Spirit controls, not alone one member, but all the members of Christ, those baptized into one body by one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13), which constitutes “the church of God, them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor. 1:2).

One knows not for what he should pray except he have the aid of the abiding Spirit (Rom. 8:26). Each filled with the Spirit and allowing the Spirit to have perfect right of way, forms perfect agreement. “If two [or more] of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.” Matt. 18:19.

Thus we see that united prayer is power intensified. “The effectual fervent prayer of a [one] righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16). The fervent agreement of two or more makes the availing doubly sure, or more so.

One design of prayer is to bring Christians into perfect accord. There is power in unity. A dozen forces laboring separately are attempting to accomplish a certain achievement. Each is trying by its own power alone to gain the end. It is concluded that none in its own strength alone can reach the goal. The attainment is impossible. With a little added strength, though, the execution is assured. Then two of these forces unite while the other ten decide to plod on separately. We ask, which stands the better chance of winning the coveted prize? In how much shorter time will the laurels be theirs? Now allow the whole dozen to come into perfect agreement of action and effort and in how much shorter time and by how much more ease and grace will the end be gained? Thus is united prayer better and more powerful than individual prayer, and could all the world’s Christians be agreed in prayer today, in perfect Holy Ghost agreement, we mean, the world would be taken for Christ tomorrow.

It is perfectly natural that there should be more power in the unity of forces. Prayer is the force which puts the Holy Spirit to action. Prayer warms and kindles the Holy Spirit’s fires in our hearts. Something is to be consumed by fire. Start a spark of fire in one place and if not extinguished it will eventually devour the object. Start two different fires in two separate places and the certainty of consummation is doubled. Now start a dozen fires in as many distinct locations and the consumption will be accomplished sooner and more surely. This is prayer. Separate, fervent prayer is fine and commendable. Agreement of two is better, and perfect agreement of a dozen still better. A fire kindled in fervent prayer in one heart is fine. A fire kindled in fervent prayer in two hearts at the same time is better and more effectual, while a fire kindled in fervent prayer in the hearts of a dozen Spirit-filled men and women at the same time is a dozen times more effectual. Such perfect agreement can set heaven itself ablaze with holy enthusiasm for the salvation of souls and the healing of the sick, till the sparks fly in every direction, reaching the hearts of men and women for God. Just a spark is all that is needed to kindle a warming glow in any heart except that heart be frigidly cold or as hard as adamant. The greater the number united in fervent prayer for a definite end the easier will it be to win the victory.

Humanity is so constituted as to desire companionship. Human hearts are more quickly moved by association in intercession. It is easier to go where the crowd goes. It is not so difficult to do as the multitudes are doing. This same law works in prayer. It is easier to go to the place of prayer if another goes. It becomes that much easier the greater the crowd. It is not so difficult to pray with those who pray and believe in prayer as to attempt prayer before those who neither pray nor believe in prayer. Some may object to this latter statement by arguing that a Spirit-filled person can pray anywhere and under any circumstances. But experience has taught and every honest heart will confess that it is harder to pray an effectual prayer in the presence of doubt and doubters. In one place even Jesus seemed unable to pray effectually enough to bring down the power of God to do “many mighty works” (Matt. 13:58).

When with a crowd and the crowd is all offering prayer, with perfect agreement, who, if living close to God, does not catch inspiration to join his heart and voice? At the same time, under such inspiration and anointing, is faith intensified. One is “full of faith and of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 6:5), which immediately inspires faith in another and another and another. This faith in turn inspires the first with more faith till the intensity of faith causes heaven itself to hasten to send forth the answer and the showers of blessings.

Too many professing holiness, but in reality without holiness, and “without holiness no man shall see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14), try to put on the “holier than thou” attitude. There is great need of determination in the hearts of holy men and women to become more holy than thou. Would to God there were more of a holy rivalry today; more of a righteous striving to excel in holiness, spirituality, and spiritual gifts. Neither need we fear that such holy rivalry will drag along with it a great deal of pride, for just the opposite will be the result. The deeper the spirituality the greater the holiness possessed. The greater the attainment of spiritual gifts and of God-given powers, the greater will be the humility of the one so endued. Allow humility to leak out of the heart and life, and in proportion to the leak will we lose spirituality and holiness and power. In united prayer each supports and helps the other in holiness. Our prayerfulness or lack of prayerfulness cannot but have some weight or influence with those about us.

Ordinarily one having a definite aim and purpose in view should stick till the end is accomplished or at least till God reveals His intentions not to answer. But should God neither answer nor reveal His intentions not to answer it is high time to take a spiritual inventory lest one get so far removed from God as to lose out entirely. To stop short of such is like pulling a wagon by united effort to within a few feet of the goal at the summit of the mountain, then letting it roll back. Unite for a speedy reward and earnestly and fervently agree for the answer. It is through the most perfect union that the Spirit manifests the fullest power. It was after a night spent

in prayer by a number of Christians that Edwards preached a sermon so powerful that sinners wept and the people clung to the pews.

If your preacher isn’t as powerful in his preaching as you think he should be, get together, unite, not to criticize and pick flaws and find fault, but unite in prayer that God fill and thrill and cause his very being—body and spirit, to throb with a God-given, old-fashioned, gospel-laden, soul stirring, convicting and edifying message. Try it, we urge, and the results may surprise both your pastor and yourself. It is worthwhile at least to give it an experiment.

A Christian father became aroused at his own indifference concerning the spiritual welfare and conversion of his children. Not one of them was saved. He spoke to his wife and the mother of his children about it. She, too, became concerned. A day was set aside for fasting and prayer. The children sneered. The parents continued the fasting and praying for three days, when one grown-up son, now living with his own family, came home and asked the parents to pray for his salvation, stating he was feeling miserable in his soul. He was gloriously saved, and soon every member of the family followed.

During a revival a prominent man in whom a number were interested refused to yield to Christ. One evening at the close of the service several neighbors got together and agreed that the next day at one o’clock each would unite in secret prayer for his conversion. At the appointed hour each besought God earnestly for the desired result. The man came to service that evening, went to the altar and there gave his heart to God. Then not knowing what his neighbors had done, he turned to the audience and said that between one and two o’clock that day such an overwhelming sense of guilt came over him that he hardly knew how to endure it. There is power in united prayer without which souls will be lost.

A woman attended church regularly, but refused to get saved, saying, “All I want is five minutes before I die, and I shall be ready.” The church was unconcerned and the pastor unable to spur them on to agreement in prayer for her soul. One day while walking on the street a young lady grabbed him by the arm and said, “Mother is dying. Come this very minute.” He rushed to the house and found this very woman, who upon seeing him shrieked out, “Oh, I am damned, I am damned,” and she died.

Oh, that churches would awake and unite in prayer for souls, before too late.

PUBLIC PRAYER

In public prayer one needs to know what to pray for. Knowing what the needs are he can pray for a definite supplying of those specific needs. Secret prayer—successful, fervent secret prayer is necessary to successful, fervent public prayer. Without secret prayer (uttered behind closed doors with no ear but the ear of the Almighty to listen) preceding, public prayer is hollow, wearying, and disgusting to the spiritual-minded listeners. To neglect secret prayer, then attempt public prayer is but to pray to be heard of men, and such “have their reward” (Matt. 6:2, 5), and that reward is not a reward in heaven but the reward of lost confidence and respect of fellowmen.

Publicly uttered prayer needs, as does private prayer, to be fired with the lightning of holy fire. Such is bound to kindle zeal and fervor in the hearts of others.

Public prayer should be brief, crisp, animated, and pointed. All of us have been thoroughly disgusted because of long, drawn-out, dry and dull, sluggish public prayers covering everything from Dan to Beersheba, from alpha to omega, from life to death, and yet in reality having covered nothing. Many in public pray out their trials and their tests and their tribulations and their woes and their troubles and the groanings of the home life they are compelled to endure, till the listener is made to feel the end may never draw nigh and to wish the petitioner would have poured out his calamity and hoisted his distress signal at home and in secret. Such not only wearies and discourages the audience but at the same time takes up and uses valuable time which could have been used for beneficial and encouraging purposes.

Public prayer should have a definite aim at timely needs. Timely prayer, seasoned with holy enthusiasm, creates a stir and gives a thrill. The world is looking today for something to thrill. This is a thrill-hunting and a thrill-mad age. Even saints enjoy occasional thrills.

We know of nothing more thrilling or more affecting than publicly uttered, Spirit-filled, thanksgiving-seasoned, fervent, ardent, passionate, appealing, glowing, heated and impassioned prayer. Many have never had this thrill, and should spirituality continue to decline in the next few generations as it has in the past few, one wonders if the masses will ever receive more than one or two such thrills in a lifetime.

Variety is the spice of publicly uttered prayer. Ever to pray the same old prayer, in the same old way, in the same old tone, and in the same old dead, formal way, not only becomes monotonous to the one who prays, but the poor listeners surely need prayer offered in their behalf; prayer that they might have patience and grace to endure, and faithfulness and longsuffering to “endure unto the end,” that they may not become so wearied and fatigued as to lose sight of the crown of life and the mansion above.

The true spirit of public prayer never leads to anything discourteous or vulgar. To use the place of prayer as a chopping-block for foes and enemies and imagined opponents is far from the spirit of true Christianity and the leadings of the Holy Spirit.

This is a day of emotionalism with some factions and movements. Unless one can seem to be as emotional as his fellow-worshiper there is a tendency to discount his sincerity and spirituality. A worked-up, put-on enthusiasm is the result. A worked-up emotion or enthusiasm in public prayer is useless. Be natural, be yourself, and never try to imitate another. It always ends in failure and causes one not only to lose the confidence and respect of his brethren, but to lose confidence in himself as well. Many have attempted this and failed, and have become discouraged and are trying to make themselves believe there is nothing to a Christian experience. If inclined toward emotionalism, by all means do not quench the Spirit. If inclined to calmness and naturally of a retiring nature, by all means do not crush the Spirit through attempts to put on like someone else. Allow the Spirit to have His way. We feel safe to say that the number of those who have become discouraged and have lost their taste for God and the place of worship because of trying to put on are greater than the number of those who have quenched the Spirit by trying to hold down.

One may become spasmodically enthusiastic while in the presence of the crowd and while emotionalism is in vogue, but the need of the church today is not mere spasmodic effort, but rather a perpetual blaze of holy enthusiasm. It is wrong to come to service as cold as an icicle, expecting to warm up by someone else’s fire. All should wait on God at home till holy fire descends from heaven; then, when each steps into the place of worship the fire already kindled will become contagious and will soon tell its tale in an agreement of holy enthusiasm.

Some, instead of being spiritual, just absorb the spirituality of others. If there is any unity or any agreement with them it must be a united effort not to get hold of God in prayer, but to spend the time in gossip and backbiting. This is always detrimental to the better spiritual welfare of all concerned. It is better to be a battery mightily surcharged from the throne, when every word thrown off will be a bomb charged with spiritual dynamite. On the spirit behind the publicly uttered prayer may depend the successes or the failure of the whole service. One must get close enough to God, the great fountain-head, to catch the flowing stream. With a heart full, it is certain to overflow.

The prayer effort is the pulse of the church. Warming up on prayer makes the heart beat faster and the pulse throb stronger and more pronounced. The prayer meeting is the thermometer by which the spiritual heat or cold of the church is gauged. Here is one of the better places for public and united prayer.

THE ANSWER

“Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24).

Here is an express command which carries a definite promise: “When ye pray, believe.” Prayer without belief is useless. Belief without prayer is unprofitable and to no avail.

Many think prayer will be answered merely because God promised and because they believe His promises are true. God’s promises are true, but the conditions of those promises are quite another thing. Merely to pray is not enough. There must be the exercise of faith. Great desire must not be confused with great faith for a great desire may be forgotten by our own selfish interest and motive. To illustrate, a girl was known for her aptness in always reciting her lessons correctly. Asked by a girlfriend what was the secret of her ability to learn and retain, she replied, “I always pray God to help me before going to class.” Her girlfriend then tried this method but utterly failed. The good reciter later asked, “But did you study?” “Study?” “Study?” exclaimed the girl who failed, “Why of course I did not study. I thought if I prayed that was all that was necessary.”

Desire may be prompted by the Holy Spirit independent of our desire. Again we may ignore the Holy Spirit in our desire, which of course in every instance means failure. It is true that great desire precedes great answers.

When faith, and only when faith, has done her work, may one expect the answer to be given and the favor bestowed. An imperfect faith will not secure its object. If the desire is very strong while the faith is very weak, the desire may be realized and rewarded with great faith provided the little faith we have is exercised in prayer. Little prayer may not avail, whereas much prayer and supplication may bring the answer.

If one does not know he is defeated or does not have a definite assurance of answer he should double or triple his effort and labors in prayer. One must distinguish between faith itself, and the answer, for faith is one thing, while the answer is quite another. Our faith must prevail with God ere the answer is to be expected. And many times this means diligent labor in prayer in order to prevail.

How many have the assurance of and testify to great faith for a certain end to be gained? Yet how often has that “assurance” failed to materialize. We have all witnessed this time and time again. What is the trouble— has the assurance of faith been overestimated? Perhaps not, but the assurance of faith was not the assurance of the end of faith. Worked faith may and usually does become prevailing faith. Jesus had faith His Father would never leave nor forsake Him, yet it took the agonizing which brought as it were His precious blood in drops from His body, ere the end of His faith materialized. Faith— exerted, worked, labored, employed, productive, operative, fruitful, toiling faith is certain of success, while effortless, restful, inoperative, non-employed, non-performing, non-productive, fruitless, frustrated faith, is ever a failure.

Too many professed Christian heads of families do not pray. An American gentleman, with an abundance of this world’s goods and holding a high and respectable station in life, courteous, kind, and dignified in his domestic relations, highly moral so far as the standard of the world is concerned, but whose house never knew the sound of prayer except when visited by his pastor or some other pious friend, had his elder son of about eighteen years, a remarkably healthy specimen, placed in college. The son was suddenly visited by a severe attack of typhoid fever, and in a comparatively short time fatal symptoms were very evident. This fact was one evening communicated to the father and in the course of the night, to his son. The son received it with surprise and immediately inquired for his father, but upon hearing he was asleep, chose not to have him awakened. Before the dawn of day, however, the father was at the bedside, when the following conversation began: “Father,” said the son, “the doctors tell me I must die. They tell me they can do no more for me.”

“I know it,” answered the father.

“Well, father, I have one and only one request to make, one favor to ask of you. Will you do it?”

“I will, son, if it is possible. Ask me anything and I will do it.”

“Father, I desire you to kneel down by my bed and pray for me.”

“I cannot do that.”

“Do, Father, pray for me! You never prayed for me; pray for me now, while I can yet hear.”

“I cannot, my son, I cannot.”

“Dear Father, you never taught me to pray, and now I die. You never prayed for me. Please, Father, just this once.”

“Oh, but I cannot do that.”

“Do not let me die without a father’s prayers.”

The father in an agony of weeping rushed from the room. He had neglected his own soul and the soul of a beloved son, and now could not muster up courage to grant the dying request for one prayer to the Father of mercies.

Competent faith and a complete answer are never coexistent. The answer instantly follows competent faith and displaces it. “For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?” (Rom. 8:24). Faith must give way to the answer, the answer to thanksgiving. Many have the faith; they obtain the answer, but never do possess the object of the exercised faith because of neglect or refusal to thank God for hearing.

One must distinguish between the answer and the blessing, for one may have the blessing while the bestowal of the favor is withheld for a season. Months after the petition is granted, the answer may be given. A young man asks a young lady to marry him. The petition is granted, but the blessing of a married companion may not be realized until months later.

Blessings are often requested for others. In such an instance the bestowal of that blessing may depend on the worthiness of the one from whom the blessing is requested. The prayer is offered, it is heard, and it is answered, but the presenting of the blessing is withheld because of the unworthiness of the one for whom the petition is offered.

Daniel prayed earnestly and fasted upon one occasion and was later informed by God that from the first day— “Thy words were heard” (Dan. 9:3; 10:12) while the object of his prayer went unrealized for “twenty-one days.”

God knows best and if allowed to do so will answer in His own good time. To attempt to hasten bestowment of a blessing is to cast reflection on God’s judgment. In many instances prayer is answered a long time before the answer is realized. Now instead of exercising faith one should exercise patience. “Let patience have her perfect work” (James 1:4).

Entertaining a request is hearing prayer. Assurance of having heard is answering prayer. The answer executed is the bestowal of the blessing.

To illustrate, a mother instructs a child, “Ask for bread and you shall have it.” This is the promise. The child says, “Mama, I am hungry; please give me some bread.” This is prayer. The mother listens. This is hearing. The child waits expectantly. This is competent faith. The mother says, “Yes, you may have it.” This is the answer. The child waits with perfect trust. This is exercised faith. The mother after preparing bread and butter gives it to the child. This is bestowment. Had the child doubted the word of his mother and run away the bread would never have been his.

Right here is no doubt where too many fail to realize the object of their prayer. They ask, they believe, but get tired or doubtful after a short wait and run away from the blessing; discouraged with self, disgusted with God, and disgruntled for life.

Any prayer agreeable to God will be answered: “This is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him” (1 John 5:14,15).

One who thinks God has reason for withholding cannot pray the prayer of faith. He may be submissive to God’s will while at the same time faith is impossible. At such time his faith is in God’s judgment but not for the object he has in view.

The chief motive of all prayer should be and is, if genuine, to glorify God. To seek for one’s own glory is selfish. When there is a specific promise and our own genuine faith fails we may expect the Holy Spirit to come to our aid.

“God, at sundry times and in divers manners spake” (Heb. 1:1). The Spirit is the Messenger who conveys the message; He is the expositor explaining it. He reveals, not himself, but Christ.

With the quickening and illuminating Holy Spirit and the “Word of life” abiding in us we may know God’s will. Otherwise we may often be deceived. A desire begotten by the Holy Spirit draws our thought, our mind, yea our whole being after it. But one must not become confused to think that all intense desire is begotten by the Holy Spirit. Too many times an extremely intense desire is created by selfish motives. Too many are caught in the whirlpool of self and selfishness. Such fail to recognize either the will or the glory of God. In such a state there is great danger of being misled by impressions and impulses. The pope Self needs to be feared more than the pope of Rome. The controlling motive should be to glorify God. To do so one must submit unconditionally to God’s will.

The promptings of the divine Spirit are gentle and tender. Even the most spiritual need to proceed cautiously. One so far gone as to think himself so led by the Holy Spirit as to make no mistakes is already in the abyss of fanaticism. The presence and indwelling of the Spirit never has and does not now, and never will make anybody infallible in this life. Infallibility is an attribute of God and of God alone. No other human being, arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, has ever attained to such experience. Yet there are those who say they have prayed through and been led truly by the Holy Spirit who accept no other opinion but the opinion of self. We must remember that God can and does also lead our spiritual brethren by the Holy Spirit. This fact denied makes one a religious, intolerant fanatic. There is great need of being submissive to our brethren. One is apt to lean too much on his own understanding rather than to depend on the wisdom and might of God. It is more than unsafe to depend too much on impressions.

One man, after prayer, felt “impressed” by the Holy Spirit to go to a certain number on a certain street to talk to a man about his soul, only to find there was no such street and no such number. Many are impressed, in prayer, by the “Holy Spirit,” (?) to fall prostrate on the floor, in the midst of promiscuous gatherings, and under the name of religion, which “unseemly” position and action would not be tolerated in the lowest theaters and dance- halls without a protest by both the audience and the police. Impressions of the Spirit are always within the bounds of reason and good sense. He never impresses us to do a thing contrary to decency and order (1 Cor. 14:40).

Not long ago we read in the papers of a woman who in prayer was impressed by the “Holy Spirit” (?) to butcher her precious children. This report was later confirmed to the writer by one well acquainted with the instance. This woman was a zealous worker in a “Holy Spirit baptized” (?) body of religious fanatics.

The writer was acquainted with a member of a well- known and zeal-filled, literature-spreading organization, who was impressed, as he said, “by the Holy Spirit,” to drown his four dear, sweet, little children, one at a time in the bath tub and then take his own life, in order that his wife and the mother of the children might be more free to spread their propaganda. This he carried out and the five coffins

were borne to the grave with a whole city as onlookers of his fanaticism.

God never did, and never will, through the Holy Spirit and prayer, impress us to do or say a thing unreasonable. But He will impress and lead to things reasonable. The Word is the great depository of divine truth. One cannot lean too heavily on its infallible teachings. No one can claim divine guidance who indulges in willfulness, selfishness, or ambitious schemes. Safe and sane and sensible advice is to follow no impression unless we know it is of God. True conviction excludes all doubt. One is under positive obligation not to follow leadings till made clear. Every obligatory conviction of the Holy Spirit carries with it unmistakable proof of its source. The only safety lies in waiting for divine enlightenment and guidance.

Finney was holding a revival in a certain city. No souls were being saved. The Christians became discouraged, and sinners enraged at his way of putting things. With one of the deacons he went into a grove to pray. There they prayed and hung onto God till the assurance of victory was given. That night God poured out a stream of truth through Finney and conviction rested heavily upon the people. The meeting was dismissed with no invitation to sinners but the people came to him all hours of the night for help.

We ask, can a man receive and possess a farm and not know it? Again, can a man receive the greatest possession of all time, viz., a knowledge of sins forgiven and that he is God’s by virtue of salvation, and not know it? The Holy Spirit’s work and His testimony to that work are coexistent. If physically healed of a serious ailment a man knows it. If healed of sin and spiritual defects a man also knows it.

“I believe that Jesus will save me,” is not salvation. “I believe that Jesus saves me now” is real salvation. Anything less is not salvation, for faith must be lost in possession.

A seeker for salvation has no right to claim the experience till conscious of the fact. “We know that we have passed from death unto life” (1 John 3:14) is the grand climax of salvation work wrought in the heart of man through prevailing prayer and the Holy Spirit.

If faith may be exercised in part, then why not wholly? Any degree of faith is evidence that a full answer may be obtained. Nothing less than full faith will avail. Full faith comes only by the help of the Holy Spirit. Because faith is not perfect is no reason to conclude we have none. What is needed is to develop our “little faith” into a big and full faith.

Usually the strongest temptation to give up is at the time when one is right on the verge of victory. If tempted to give up trying and impressed one cannot get through to God, one should redouble the effort unless the Holy Spirit has made something otherwise known.

THE KINGLY POWER OF BELIEVERS

“And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the princes of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests” (Rev. 1:5, 6).

Washed in the blood of Jesus a man becomes a prince, a priest, a king. In referring to a man as a prince we infer him to be “the cream of the earth.” A prince, a king, has power. Blood-washed kings have power with God and to have power with God is to have power with men.

There are three great intercessions laden with divine power. First, of Christ, pleading with the Father in our behalf: “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25). Without Him there would be no way of reaching God, for He is the “one (and only) mediator between God and men” (1 Tim. 2:5).

The pope cannot plead directly with God, the bishop cannot, the priest cannot, neither can the laymen. But Jesus can and does, and without Him there is no mediator.

Second, of the Holy Spirit pleading with saints: “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom. 8:26, 27).

Third, of the church pleading in behalf of sinners: “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession” (Ps. 2:8). “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16). “Ye are the temple of the living God” (2 Cor. 6:16). “Be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18). One filled with the Spirit lives “soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world” (Titus 2:12). If we “live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25).

When Jesus pleads with the Father, that is divinity making intercession and no one doubts the outcome. When the Holy Spirit pleads with saints that is divinity making intercession, and if the saint is fully consecrated no one doubts the outcome. When the church, made up of God-filled and Holy Spirit-filled men and women, makes intercession, how can we doubt the outcome? That again is divinity making intercession.

There is prayer offered for personal blessings, and second, prayer which is offered for others—intercessory. We feel safe to say there is by far too little of the latter. Many can, in times of trial and trouble, pray and pray earnestly and vehemently, “Bless me, bless me,” but when the other fellow is in trouble, deep in sin, sick in body, lost in iniquity, they either forget or become not at all concerned, whereas our prayers and ours alone may be the ones upon which the Lord relies and upon which the welfare of the other depends.

The “head of the church,” Jesus (Col. 1:18; Eph. 1:22, 23), “the prince of the kings of the earth” (Rev. 1: 5), designs to make all believers prevailing through Him and by the Holy Spirit, for the salvation of sinners.

He has drafted believers to call down upon the community and upon the world the blessings of God and the salvation of his Christ. If believers fail, who will call down those blessings, we ask?

A child asking candy for self, from his father, also asks, “Please give some for sister, also.” This is both considerate and generous. But what shall we say of the professed Christian world of today who get saved themselves, then straightway forget their brethren in the flesh in sin? Is not such an attitude both selfish and narrow-minded? The nature and the very core of Holy Ghost religion is to bless others. Disinterestedness in others, is, we fear, quite a clear proof of a lack of Holy Spirit power.

Love for Christ will lead us to do what Christ did. He gave Himself for others. He spent Himself in prayer for others. He became poor (with “no place to lay His head”) that we might be right. He went into the tomb that He might break the bands of death and of the tomb for you and me. He loved those who hated Him. He prayed for those who despitefully used Him. He blessed those who cursed Him. What a precious Saviour! What a glorious example He set for others!

To intercede is to come between two parties to secure a favor for one of them. The world cannot go one short moment without God’s blessings. They are dependent on Him for their daily food and drink; they must look to Him for the raiment placed upon their backs hourly; they cannot go for one moment without the air He gives to breathe; they cannot enjoy salvation and heaven without Him. Take every saint out of the world and the gravitation toward God would cease to the extent that the earth itself would flee away and no place be found for it (Rev. 20:11). Allow the saints to withdraw for one day from the earth and every silent or audible prayer to cease, and

the people of the earth would be startled by the quietness and solitude.

If God’s people and believers fail to pray, the world of sinners is doomed. They must pray. Sinners need the saints’ prayers. God depends on His saints to pray. Can we fail either sinners or God and retain our clearness of conscience? Can we? God help us to keep clear before Him whatever we do.

It will pay to pray and then trust and not faint, for at such a time and in such a manner as ye think not, God may send the answer.

A sailing ship was driven on the rocky coast of Scotland by a hurricane. The life-saving crew went to the rescue as the storm shrieked like a band of demons bent on some errand of destruction. The life-savers had rescued the ship’s crew and were pulling away when they saw a man clinging to the rigging with the angry waters lapping and splashing over him, while fear and despair were depicted in every feature. But they decided the storm was too fierce to attempt his rescue, and they pulled for the shore. Reaching the shore a young man volunteered to go back if someone would go with him. His mother threw her arms about him and, clinging as though it were her last hope of life on earth or in heaven, begged him not to go, saying, “Your father was lost at sea years ago and your brother went to sea eight years ago and although I have prayed daily I have never seen or heard of him since.” But he broke her embrace, and springing to the boat, pushed out into the angry, surging, foam-capped waves. It was a battle of life or death as courageously he struggled at the oars. Finally the wreck was reached, the man landed safely in the boat, and the start made for the shore. Nearing the shore with the shades of night fast falling, those on land called through the darkness, “Have you got the other man?” and standing up in the boat

and raising his hands to his mouth to trumpet the words, he shouted back, “Yes, and tell Mother I’ve got my lost brother William.”

All about us everywhere souls are perishing, as they cling to the transitory, corruptible things of earth. They are our lost brothers, and it is our duty to rescue them. Not only one, but thousands are adrift, about to be drawn down by the angry billows of sin and the undertow of iniquity and false doctrine. God is depending on us to win them. It is not enough merely to look with fear on the palaces of the rich or with solicitude on the hovels of the poor; our feet must cross their threshold and we must pray them into the kingdom. If we fail to get the multitudes we can get them one by one, if we pray.

Facing Vicksburg, the Eleventh Indiana sent for reserves. They received a crowd of raw soldiers who knew nothing about fighting. Among the number was one gaunt, long-legged Hoosier by the quaint name of Peter Apples, who knew nothing else but to obey orders. When the order came, “Forward march, double quick,” Peter stretched out his long legs and on to the fight. The others were left far behind, unable to keep pace with his long and rapid strides. On he went, seemingly unaware he was alone, and over the low earthworks of the enemy he sprang, and stepping up beside the gunner who was ramming home a charge, brought him a clip at the side of the head that staggered him, and grabbing him by the nape of the neck he marched back to camp, uninjured, but panting for breath. The soldiers rallied around asking, “Peter, where did you get him?” “Get him?” said Peter, “I got him up there [pointing with his long finger], there’s lots of them up there; every last man of you could have had one if you had only gone after him.”

That is the secret—go after them; go into it to win. There is a stream of humanity constantly being swept down into the awful maelstrom. There are numbers of them to be had for Christ and each can have one or more if we only go after them. The Master’s command is, “Go ye,” “Pray ye.” The trouble with most of us is we do not go after souls. We wait for a more convenient time; for a special opportunity, unmindful of the fact that the more convenient time is today, and the special opportunities are now. There are countless millions around the throne who have been rescued one by one. We need not be disheartened because of inability to stir the masses. Reach out for one soul and win that one, and our courage will be renewed for the next.

It is an indication of coming usefulness to be interested in one soul. Anyone can be interested in a crowd. Begin, and begin with the one nearest you. The prospect may not look encouraging, but press on and the victory is yours. Remember Jesus and Nicodemus; Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well; Jesus and the rich young ruler. Three of Christ’s most stirring sermons were preached to these.

Pray, for God’s inspired Word enjoins it. “I exhort therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men” (1 Tim. 2:1). If we do not pray or win them into the kingdom, how can we thank God for them? Should another win them and pray them in, the rejoicing will be theirs; the thanksgiving will belong to them, not us. God provided salvation for all. Christ tasted death for all. Many more will be saved if the church becomes awakened to the joys of winning souls. There is both joy and pleasure in soul-winning now, and honors hereafter, with stars in our crowns throughout eternity.

In London, a noblewoman died. God touched her eyes and they closed; her heart, and it ceased to beat; her ears, and they heard no more; her lungs, and they ceased to function; her tongue, and it was stilled. Kind, gentle, and loving hands carried her into a large auditorium that the city and the world might pay honor. A representative of the queen was sent; lords and ladies were there; the rich came to look and to weep. At last came the poor people and weeping thousands passed beside the sleeping woman. Then a poor woman came, with every mark of poverty, carrying a babe in her arms and leading another by the hand. She put the baby on the floor, loosed the clasp of the other child and stooped and kissed repeatedly the glass which covered the face of that one cold and still in death. A guard stepped forward and said, “You will have to move on, you are stopping the people.” Turning to the surging mass of anxious people, her eyes flashing and every nerve of her body a-tingle with emotion, she cried out, “I will not move on; I’ve walked sixty miles this way to look on this face. She saved my boys from hell, and I have a right to look and weep.” Then she stooped and kissed again and again the glass covering the face, while the multitude looked on and wept and sobbed. That noble woman in the casket was Mrs. Booth, the mother of the Salvation Army. She was loved because of being filled with a love for souls.

The souls we bring to Jesus will be our crown of rejoicing through the ceaseless ages of eternity. What will heaven mean to me if “when the roll is called up yonder” there is no one there because of me? God grant there may be many walking the streets of gold because of our individual prayers and our individual efforts. If here there is a group and there a group surrounding one instrumental in saving them, and you are surrounded by none, what a lonesome wanderer throughout eternity you would be. God grant it may not be so.

Is pardon provided for all? Yes, “whosoever will,” “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord” (Rom. 10:13; Acts 2:21). “The Lord is . . . not willing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9). Having made provision for the salvation of all, Christ is willing to save all. If all are not saved, may we ask, can we lay it to the charge of Jesus or will the responsibility be on the church? God help us to do our duty and not to be guilty of the sin of omission.

Why, why, we ask, are not more men saved? Is it not because all Christians are not exercising all possible faith? God has done His part and has done it well: “he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever” (John 3:16). The atonement is powerful enough, high enough, broad enough, deep enough, loving enough, sacrificial enough to reach all men. The responsibility now rests with the church.

A business man said, “I am interested in the church and am always glad to see you ministers, but I have thought long and carefully and have decided I have no need of Jesus, for I am prosperous, business is fine, and I am in good health.” Within a week he was taken ill and his throat filled so he could not speak. Just before death his throat opened and he whispered, “Who—shall—take—me—over —the—river?” and was gone.

Here was a soul lost, one who was interested in the church, but not in Jesus. Is it not possible professed Christians are to be blamed for this? We cannot help but ask, did the saved people of that congregation take the interest they should have taken? Did they go to God in as earnest prayer as they should? Or were they negligent?

Are not too many whose very heart and soul ought to be centered on Christ and the salvation of souls too much engrossed today in the grasping of the almighty dollar? A prize was once offered for the best definition of money. It was awarded to a boy who defined money as “that which will buy anything but happiness and will admit us to any place except heaven.” This being true, how much the Christian church ought to interest herself in salvation work. And should she warm up in the effort of prayer she will not only save herself, but save the world.

Two men were overtaken by a blizzard on a western plain. The truth finally dawned upon them that they were lost and slowly freezing to death. One said, “I just cannot go farther. I’ll sit down here and die, but you go and inform my family.” His companion was aroused and pushed and kicked and urged him onward. When he could get him to move no more he picked him up and carried him. The desperate effort put forth to carry his friend warmed him up and was the means of saving not only his own life, but also the life of his friend.

Unless the Christian church warms up, unless professing saints warm up, they may slowly freeze to death themselves, to say nothing about winning the world of sinners to Christ. If the church warms up and takes strenuous exercise in prayer she will not only save herself, but all of those she carries on her prayer-list.

Not long since the writer read the report of a recent find in the ruins of Pompeii. It was the petrified body of a crippled boy with a beautiful arm about his waist. It told its own story, viz., when the flood of lava came, someone tried to rescue the crippled boy who was unable to save himself; and the arm stretched out to save another was preserved, while the rest of the body was destroyed.

Well does this illustrate the powers of the church of God, for that part of her which is interested in saving others is sure to be preserved, while the disinterested part will be lost.

Tell the birds amidst the burst of Spring not to sing; tell the waters welling from the depths not to flow; tell the happy child not to jump and play and laugh; tell the sun and stars not to shine; and when these all obey you, tell the soul filled with the Spirit and the love of God it must not speak to Him in prayer for others, and it will laugh you to scorn.

A whole-hearted and complete consecration of the church will bring a universal outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And when the church becomes baptized with the Holy Ghost she will become a mighty power house to be used of Christ Jesus in disseminating the blessings and the glory of the Lord as did the church of the morning age.

All sinners in a given community may be reached by intercessory prayer. All will be reached in time if the agencies of prayer are put into operation. While a reasonable length of time must be given for the effective operation of the agencies of prayer, the most important thing is to get those agencies into operation.

It is perfectly natural for the Spirit-filled man’s instinct to warn him of the fires of hell and impending eternal danger. Thus it becomes natural for him to inhale and exhale the breath of prayer for others.

Little does man know when he petitions God how and when God may see fit to answer that prayer, but if left to God one may feel confident it will be answered if to His glory to do so and at the right time. Many of our prayers are answered of which we know nothing and perhaps never shall know till at the Judgment.

A party was one evening sailing down the Potomac River while a gentleman on board was entertaining by singing hymns, among which was, “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.” As he sang this song a deep hush fell over all those aboard the boat. When he had finished a man stepped up and said, “Were you in the late war?” “Yes, sir,” replied the singer, “I fought under Grant.” “Well,” said the other, “I was on the other side, and eighteen years ago tonight you were doing guard duty. I had been chosen to pick you off because I was a sure shot. I crept near your post of duty while the shadows hid me, with my murderous weapon in my hand. You paced back and forth humming the tune you just sang, and as I raised my gun to aim at your heart and was about to pull the trigger, out on the night breezes floated these words from your lips, ‘Cover my defenseless head with the shadow of thy wing,’ and your prayer was answered and there was no attack on your camp that night.”

The value of our intercessions depends largely upon the intercession of the Spirit within us. When our spirits in harmony with the Spirit of Christ, intercede, then we may expect the answer.

The eternal blessings of others are dependent to a large extent on our intercessions. How we should appreciate and should endeavor to show to God our appreciation of the condescension of the Almighty to employ such feeble beings as we are to intercede for others! What confidence Jesus placed in us to leave the salvation of souls and the upbuilding and advancement of His kingdom to us while He goes to prepare a place for us! Jesus took it for granted we would do our duty; that we might look after and prosper in His cause and thereby prove ourselves worthy of the mansions in glory.

A keen comprehension would incite the church to rise to the full power of her sacred privilege. The church holds the balance of moral power in her hands. She can sit on the throne and spiritually become the godly queen of the nations should she once rise to her privileges and powers. But that which Zion needs the most is to travail at the throne of grace. She needs to do so. She must do so if the gospel is to be propagated and the church and cause spared. The intercessional incense of God’s people must rise and mingle with the intercessional incense of God’s Son in heaven. Once this is done the angels of heaven will descend with showers of blessings upon mankind and ascend with the sweet incense of a praying people as a sweet-smelling savor in the nostrils of God (see Revelation 8:3-5).

A powerful persuasion that God desires to fulfill His promises and to answer our prayers is important. What, we ask, can successfully obstruct Holy Spirit intercourse with God? Nothing, absolutely nothing, for the powers of earth and hell combined, the union of wicked men and devils, cannot block the plans of God and thereby keep the answer from materializing. The Spirit making intercession within us assures success. The arrangement of asking and receiving is divine, and to defeat divinity is an absolute impossibility.

An unbelieving doctor of Portland, Ore., was called to the bedside of a dying girl in a house of prostitution, under the shadow of a church spire. A poor, white hand was held out and laid in the doctor’s while she asked, “Doctor, can’t you save me?” To this the doctor replied, “There is no help for you on earth. Your hope must be in the world to come.” Just then the sound of a beautiful organ and the words of a beautiful hymn came floating through the open window. The tears flowed down her cheeks, and in agony she cried, “O my God, my God, if I were only a little girl with my mama again.” This was the wail of “a broken and a contrite heart” (Ps. 51:17), and such God has promised not to “despise.” The doctor asked, “Shall I send for a clergyman?” “No, doctor, no one can do me any good but you. Doctor, please pray for me. Pray for God to forgive me. Tell him I’m sorry and to please forgive poor Nellie.”

The weight of a thousand worlds bore him to his knees and he prayed earnestly for the dying girl. Delirium came on and she softly said, “Mama, kiss little Nellie”; then again, “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep,” and “Please, dear Jesus, bless dear papa and mama, and little Nellie.” The rustling of the angels’ wings could almost be heard as they hovered about the bed, and soon her soul was wafted to the presence of God who gave it. But the power that brought peace to Nellie brought trouble to the doctor’s soul, till he went to his office and there on his knees made a complete surrender to God.

There was a saloon keeper in Kalamazoo, Michigan, whose wife got saved during a revival. He forbade her going to services, but said, “You can go into our chamber and pray with me all you please.” Being a mere babe in Christ she hardly knew how to pray. This her wicked husband well knew and thought immediately to discourage her in any further worship of God. But when she did pray, doing the best she knew how, he was surprised, and that day everything went wrong. The next day he admitted, “I thought this method would break the charm, but her simple prayer gripped my heart,” and as they arose from their knees he put his arms around his wife and kissed her, his heart melted and softened, and then he came humbly to the feet of Jesus.

In the West, during the awakening of 1857 brought about by prayer, there lived a Roman Catholic family in which one of the members, a little girl of seven, was induced to attend a Protestant Sunday school. The father protested, but soon became anxious about his soul. He awoke in agony at the midnight hour and asked his wife to pray for him. She replied, “I can no more pray than you can, but maybe our little Mary can.” He took up little Mary in his arms and carried her downstairs, where he asked, “Mary, can you pray?” She repeated the Lord’s Prayer. Then he asked, “Can you read?” “Yes, Daddy,” and she read from the third chapter of John, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so also must the Son of man be lifted up,” and “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The father in the agony of his soul cried out, “O, Mary, that is for me, that is for me. I can believe, I do believe,” and he rejoiced with great joy for Christ had come to abide at his house.

God give us more Sunday schools and more praying Sunday school teachers and more prayer-taught little girls and little boys and we shall win the world for Christ.

A pious man in western New York was seriously sick with consumption and too poor to purchase many of earth’s comforts, which an unconverted but kind-hearted merchant supplied. As the poor man could make no return financially for these temporal blessings supplied, he decided the best he could do was to pray for the salvation of his benefactor. As he began to pray his own soul was kindled and he got hold of God. Although there was no revival in progress, the merchant, to the astonishment of all, got saved. The fire kindled and a powerful revival broke out, which swept the community.

After this man’s death his wife, in looking through his diary, found in various places, “I have this day been able to offer what I call the prayer of faith for the outpouring of the Spirit on the church at— [naming various towns and cities].” In time the revival broke out in all of these places and hundreds of souls were made to rejoice in the salvation of Jesus.

A farmer in North Carolina drove to town with a team of spirited horses and stopped in front of a store in which he intended making purchases. The team becoming frightened, and maddened by strange noises, started to run. The farmer sprang at their heads and caught the bridles and hanging on was dragged and finally trampled beneath their feet. He was asked as he lay dying, “Why sacrifice your life for a team of horses and a wagon?” With a last gasp he replied, “Go—look—in the—wagon.” There, asleep in the straw, lay his little son.

When the church of any given community or of any number of communities becomes that concerned that she can cry from the heart, “Give me the souls of those entrusted to my care or I perish,” then will sinners be spared and brought safely home to the Father in heaven.

A Christian worker walking along the street came up to a crowd of people surrounding a little lost child, who pleadingly put up her little arms, saying, “Won’t you please show me the way home?” “That cry,” said the worker, “has been ringing in my ears ever since, when I meet wandering souls in sin.”

Yes, the world is in a lost and bewildered state, but many there are who would like to get home if they could know the way. Some sit week after week in the church whom we may show the way homeward if we but interest ourselves in them.

Saul of Tarsus was one of the most oppressive of the church’s enemies. Naturally the thoughts of the church were turned on him. The searchlight of “pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you” (Matt. 5:44) was made use of and focused upon him till it brought forth the earth’s greatest apostle. Till we have focused our attention and intercessory prayers upon one such and brought forth an equal or a more mighty apostle we need not belittle that early church for being behind the times and we of today so much more advanced.

The most advanced church of any or all ages is that church or that people who can be depended upon to pull the more fire and power from heaven. The power of God prayed down subdued the all but invincible Saul and turned him from the channel of destruction and switched him into the channel of greatest usefulness for God and God’s kingdom.

A girl evangelist, holding a revival about one hundred miles from home, one evening after services felt a special burden for her six brothers and sisters at home who were unsaved. She wrestled till three o’clock in the morning in prayer to God for them and then felt assured they were saved. At the same time the father at home felt a crushing burden and that evening poured out his heart during family worship for the same purpose and end. And the next day all were saved.

Looking at the sinfulness of sinners rather than the power of God has a great tendency to block faith. It is not the littleness of sin nor the greatness of sin; neither the quality nor the quantity of sin, but the mighty, all-sufficient power of God on which the soul-winner must get his eyes.

An infidel drunkard had a pious and devoted mother, who asked a band of women three hundred miles distant to agree in prayer for him. This was done unbeknown to her unbelieving son. In a few days the drink appetite completely left him and he got under heavy conviction, passing through a period of awful despair and wishing he might fall asleep and never wake up. For ten days he tried to pray for himself, but could not do so, after which the spell broke and he was gloriously saved. Distance is no barrier. Possibility is the measure of responsibility. And who knows the possibilities and probabilities of agonizing prayer till he has poured it out to the most extreme measure?

A woman asked a minister to come and conduct a special series of evangelistic efforts in a rural district. She had prayed long and earnestly for her neighbors. A prominent University family of twelve, she said, would, if saved, win the whole community. At the first service thirty bowed at the altar, among whom were the family of twelve. In five evenings seventy-two had bowed at the altar for salvation.

Just one lone woman who comprised the whole church of that neighborhood brought this about through intercessory prayer. If one can be so instrumental in the salvation of souls, what may not the church accomplish if once awakened to her possibilities and warmed up to action?

There is a famous statue in the Fine Arts Gallery at Paris, the work of a genius who like many others had struggled with poverty. His only room in a garret served as both studio and sleeping quarters. One midnight the statue was finished, when it turned suddenly cold. The sculptor was afraid his work would freeze and be ruined. So, having no fire in the room he reverently wrapped his bedclothes about the statue and lay down to sleep. In the morning the neighbors found him frozen and stiff in death. His life had gone out into his work.

Oh, for more such sculptors in the service of God who can hue out souls for Christ and eternity even though their lives are snuffed out in the accomplishment!

At a place called Hubbardston, Mich., a rural and farming district, it is said that a revival was once held at the time of harvest when ordinarily farmers would be too busy to attend. In answer to earnest prayer the revival fires were kindled and all the ungodly within an area of three miles were converted except three.

The ruin of a city by fire, of a district or nation by earthquake, of a valley by flood, of a town by hurricane, of a mine by cave-in, or of a nation or tribe by war, shocks the sensibilities of God’s people and God’s church, but how many stop to consider further than the temporal and physical suffering and sufferers? Who stops to think of those souls hurled into eternity without hope, without salvation, without God, and without his Christ? The time to become interested and concerned and anxious and sympathetic is now. Now is the time souls may be reached. “Today is the day of salvation.” There is no promise for tomorrow. If ever anyone needs help it is in time of trouble and distress and sore need. No need to wait till the death angel reaches down his icy hand and snatches loved ones, and friends, and neighbors away, for they need Jesus, they need salvation now. Tomorrow may be too late; too late.

Every child of God can do something if he will. Too many are disposed to desire the big evangelist, the big healer, or the most noted soul-winner, and if unable to secure his services, to lose all hope of revival effort, therefore have none. As a consequence no souls are saved, none “added to the church” (Acts 2:47), as a result of which the church is soon dead itself or in too weakened and in too cramped financial straits ever to put forth another effort.

Better get behind your present pastor if he is a man of God and you are a man of God, and hold up his hands, with confidence in his sermons, his efforts, his humility; hold him up in prayer, for no one knows what a sweeping revival fire may be kindled and how many souls may be swept into the kingdom through his efforts; possibly hundreds whom the big preacher could neither win nor hold.

Dr. Larabee, once President of Middlebury College, relates how a woman of a God-forsaken community requested they send a seminary student who could “preach the gospel.” The place was well known for its barren spiritual state and seeming impossibility of fruitful results, and none of the talented students would even consider the invitation. But there was one student, who although mentally slow in study, was “full of faith and of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 6; 5), and he consented to go. The woman who made the request was a woman of prayer and great faith. Through the uniting of prayers and of faith of these two saints of God the life and conduct of this young “deficient” preacher so convicted and won a way into the hearts of the people that when he shortly thereafter died, every man, woman, and child of the township was saved except one, and he soon moved away.

If the only saint, the only child of God in a given community is you, you can pray that community into conviction and into the kingdom.

Again, if you are disgusted with the wickedness and the worldliness and ungodliness of your community, better pray conviction on them and change it into a Christian, God-fearing, and Holy Spirit-filled one.

If one community has been brought to Christ through prayer, then any other community can be brought. If one saint has prayed conviction on a whole neighborhood of the ungodly, then you, if you are a saint, can also do the same.

With the earnest agreement of intercessory prayer, the result is a general outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This is certain to result in an ingathering of precious souls.

“As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men” (Gal. 6:10).

THE SPIRIT’S AID IN SUCCESSFUL PRAYER

“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom. 8:26, 27).

“Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts” (Jas. 4:3). “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications” (Zech. 12:10).

In these passages we are taught that which at least some of us hardly like to admit, viz., infirmity in our prayer requests and supplications. We, of ourselves, do not know what to pray for as we ought. Too often our prayers are selfish and therefore out of line and out of harmony with God and that which becometh godliness. How often do we pray merely to obtain personal benefits to be “consumed upon our own lusts.”

But when the Spirit is allowed both to take up His abode in our hearts and to have the right of way after having taken up His abode, then He overcomes those weaknesses and infirmities and helps us to pray as we ought and in a manner pleasing to God our Father. Until such is the condition our prayer life is liable to complete failure, for praying too often with little or no results has a tendency to discourage prevailing prayer and to place a stumbling-block in the pathway of faith.

The Spirit once poured out upon man and abiding in his heart is certain to give the spirit of supplication. Should a particular individual or a particular local congregation be lazy in prayer and it be necessary to force them to prayer, both secret and public, it will be well for those individuals and those congregations to take an inventory, for it may be they are void of the Spirit. The Spirit of supplication is not the spirit which must be pushed and crowded and compelled to pray by outward forcing; it is a power within impelling and propelling and animating and inciting and stimulating till the desire itself draws like a magnet to the place of prayer. Thus prayer becomes a pleasure and a longing.

The Spirit is God’s comprehensive gift to man. He not only cleanses the heart, but at the same time leads and directs the life and actions of the one possessed of Him so that that life will be lived and acted in a manner all pleasing to God. “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his.” Rom. 8:9. The life of prayer is one of the most pleasing lives.

To be filled with the Spirit is to be possessed of the graces of the Spirit. Is it possible that today by far too many are claiming the infilling and the baptism with the Holy Spirit whose lives are inconsistent and graceless? Is it inferring too much to ask if there is one who has yet found a body of one hundred professed saints and Holy Ghost professors of which everyone is filled with and acts and speaks out the graces of God?

The atonement is worthless without the helpful operations of the Holy Spirit. The atonement resolves itself into the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In His death we have an offering for sin; a power to remove sin “as far as the east is from the west” (Ps. 103:12). But that is not enough, for once cleansed from past sins there must be a power to help keep clean from present and future sin. Otherwise a man cleansed today becomes a sinner and guilty tomorrow. The Spirit of Christ is this provision. The atonement covers the sins of Christ’s people. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost (John 14:16, 26), was given to teach and guide, and to take up His abode in every child of God, and to be “a present help” to every individual member of God’s church.

The Spirit’s intercessional work is twofold. First, He produces a sense of need in man and inspires prayer for the supply of that need. Second, He helps our infirmities so that we are enabled to pray in accordance with the will of God.

The Spirit makes intercession by inspiring, qualifying, and directing our supplicational activities. His prayer is an inner prayer within our prayer. His prayer is a divine voice within our voice. In other words His intercession is the soul of which our prayer is but the body.

The spirit of prayer is the praying spirit of God Himself in the person of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a praying Spirit. As Jesus loved to converse and to commune with the Father in heaven, so also does the Holy Spirit love to converse and commune with the Father. Hence one possessed of the Holy Spirit really has the spirit of prayer.

Our power in prayer is determined by our sense of need of divine assistance. To become independent rather than dependent, to confess strength rather than weakness means failure “for when I am weak [in my own thoughts and feeling of dependence on God] then am I strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). When we feel we can do without God, God leaves us to ourselves, and it is well to remember that when one “thinks himself to be something, he is nothing” (Gal. 6:3), and even less than nothing, for he places obstacles of stumbling in his own pathway. God watches our unutterable emotions and knows what the spirit means. Thus where we alone would fail to get our petition through, the Spirit presses our plea and God’s ear is opened that it may hear.

The value of our prayers rests on the alliance of His Spirit with our spirit. “We are weak but he is strong.” His strength united with our weakness makes a strong union and a powerful agency. The worth of His prayers becomes the worth of our prayers. The wisdom of His prayers enlightens the ignorance of our prayers. The wealth of His prayers enriches the poverty of our prayers. Such a union forms the strongest and most powerful alliance known to or exercised by mankind.

With the admixture of faith and feeling, we walk as one blind-folded. But by the help and enlightenment of the Holy Spirit our path is illuminated with a sort of instinctive illumination and leads straight through to victory. The Spirit helps us in our ignorance of God’s will; He helps the infirmity of our indifference, and all too many of us are possessed with such; He helps our insensibility to the infinite value and the peril of lost souls; He helps the enfeebled element of our faith faculty. Without Him prayer is likely to result in failure; with Him and His promptings prayer is a success.

Prayers of believers offered under the influence of the Holy Spirit are inspired by God. Thus are they in direct line for a victorious answer. For God to deny the answer to such a prayer would be to deny Himself, His Son, the Holy Spirit, and His people.

Sometimes we pray for others when in reality we ought to expend our effort in prayer for ourselves. For an unsaved person to spend time praying for unsaved relatives and friends is commendable, but to get right down to business in prayer for his own salvation is far more commendable. Obtaining an experience

himself he is then in position to pray for others and get his prayer through.

The Spirit never makes a mistake. A prayer to reach God must be inspired by the Holy Spirit. God is the executive; the Holy Spirit is a sort of private secretary. The Holy Spirit is the means of entrance to the immediate presence of God. With the Spirit’s sanction any petition gains instant recognition and direct consideration and attention. Without the benefits of His office and the name of Jesus the petition must go unanswered.

The Holy Spirit pervades the being of the obedient as sunlight does the atmosphere. He radiates toward God and toward man. By the help of the indwelling Spirit one may prevail with God for sinners. By the aid of that same indwelling Spirit one is enabled to prevail with sinners for God. “All things are possible to God.” (Luke 1:37). All things are possible through faith when energized by the Holy Spirit.

Living in the Spirit fits one to pray in the Spirit. The one who is able to pray in the Spirit is the one who will come off more than conqueror so far as God is concerned.

A breath of opposition in the heart will in every instance quench the Spirit. To line up with God means to line up with God’s people and the direct leadings of the Holy Spirit. The indulgence of any questionable practice not only quenches but grieves the Spirit. The Spirit once grieved must be loved and loved with a proven love before He should be expected to perform His office work in the heart and in the requests of man. This point is worthy of consideration, for all too many in this day of indifference and neglect of God and of the Holy Spirit are prone to feel that the Holy Spirit ought to put in all or nearly all of His time to love and comfort them.

But the Holy Spirit never grieves anyone. It is man who grieves the Spirit till He takes His departure. Love will bring Him back.

THE CHRISTIAN’S POWER-HOUSE

“Filled with the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:4) “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). The church meeting these requirements and made partakers of these blessings is the ideal church. Under the plan of redemption the cause of Christ is lost should the church be taken away or fail to function in a proper manner. On the other hand, a Spirit-filled church can demolish the kingdom of Satan.

“Without me ye can do nothing,” said Jesus, but He leaves us, and then sends the Holy Spirit fully to take His place. “I will send the Holy Ghost,” said He in John 14:16, 26. “Our sufficiency is of God” (2 Cor. 3:5), but this is through the Holy Spirit.

Everyone in the church today needs, if he would be efficient, to “make himself of no reputation” (Phil. 2:7) as did Jesus; needs to take a lower place; needs to enthrone God the Father; needs to enthrone God the Son; needs to enthrone God the Holy Ghost; and with this accomplished to crown Him “Lord of all.” Then and not till then will the efficiency of the gospel be unbounded.

The practical operations of the gospel are conditioned on the freedom of operation of the Spirit in God’s church. All too many impractical operations are today accredited to the Holy Spirit and the preaching of the gospel. The gospel is practical. The Holy Spirit

is practical in His operations. A practical gospel and a practical Holy Spirit prompting to the fulfilling of that gospel make a practical body of God’s people.

A church full of the Holy Ghost and of faith only can prevail with sinners. Man in his unregenerated state and void of the Holy Spirit’s presence is unable to prevail with sinners. Hence there is a fearful responsibility resting upon the church. The very fact that the operations of the Holy Spirit in the salvation of souls is conditioned on the obedience and faith of the church puts responsibility on us who claim to be the church, to a great degree.

Who of us, we ask, is sufficient of himself for the occasion? We need the Holy Spirit in our hearts, in our lives, in our conversation, in our worship, in our singing, in our thinking. We must have Him if we are to succeed.

Oh, for a repetition of Pentecost in our midst till every born again one be filled with the Spirit and sanctified wholly. More enthusiasm, more zeal, more prayer, even though it takes a few nights and days or weeks or even months of prayer will bring this about. The Holy Spirit is a praying spirit and if given His way in our hearts and lives will carry not us, but Christ and the gospel, through to success.

During the great revival of 1857-58 a request was sent to a noon-day prayer meeting which read thus, “A praying wife requests the prayers of those attending this service for her unconverted husband that he may be converted and made a humble disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Instantly a stout, burly man arose and said, “I am that man, for I have a praying wife.” Then another arose, and another, and still another, till a number had stood to their feet and shortly gave themselves to Jesus. The revival thus started, got under headway, and ere it closed four or five hundred were brought into the kingdom.

Your church can have a resurrection of those “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1) in less than twenty-four hours if all get filled with the Spirit and endued with divine power and at the same time pray earnestly and “in faith believing, nothing wavering” (Jas. 1:6).

Every Christian has it in his power to connect with the energy of God. The belt of faith which connects to the wheels of heaven is within the reach of all and may be pushed to the whirling, circling, rapidly revolving wheels of God’s machinery by the hand of prayer, forced out by the Holy Spirit. By the aid of the Holy Spirit we may put all heaven behind our effort to reach souls. With such backing the church is safe from the damaging encroachments of Satan’s empire. The hand that puts the belt of faith to God’s promise is the hand of obedience. The Holy Ghost is the power which puts the machinery into motion.

We are no doubt safe to say that with nearly every child of God faith sometimes loses its hold on God. Shall we confess it or not? Refusing to confess, one must continue in weakness. Confessing and praying one for another avails much (Jas. 5:16). But when faith loses its hold on God something is wrong. The backslider, the grumbler, the faultfinder have all lost connection with the powerhouse. One actuated by selfish motives has no power with either God or men to win them for Christ. He must have an eye single to God’s glory.

The disgrace is not so much in being powerless as it is in not desiring power and more of it. To be content and satisfied without power is a reproach to any professing individual or church. Moody, perhaps the greatest real soul-winner of modern times, after being converted for twenty-one years, felt his need of power and sought and obtained it through the infilling of the Holy Spirit. His whole being was changed and how many other souls were changed from unrighteousness to righteousness, from sinners to saints, from useless church-goers to useful soul-laborers, through his life from that time on, eternity alone must reveal. Had he not sought and desired and obtained the blessed and all-powerful Holy Spirit thousands of souls in Paradise may have been lost eternally.

When the whole church humbles herself for the infilling of the Holy Spirit and the power which accompanies, then will the lost art of soul-saving be found, then we say, and not till then. We, the glorious church of God need to tarry in active, longing expectation. We need to become awakened and to come out of our seemingly self-satisfied air of complacency and tarry before God in prayer till the flint of faith strikes the hardened, stony hearts of sinners and brings the fire from heaven onto the hearts and souls of all in reach, together with the Holy Spirit’s glowing blaze in our own hearts and conduct. Until such an awakening or until such tarrying and such obtaining, the church will not be as effective and efficient in winning souls as God designed her to be. Then the trumpet of God shall sound at the last day when her opportunities of saving poor lost souls will be forever past.

The lack today of Holy Ghost power is the millstone about the neck of the so-called Christian church, constantly dragging her downward and deathward and hell-ward. The great question today is not how to get the world out of the church, for the world never did and never can get into God’s church. The church with the world and with worldliness in her today is not God’s church, neither has she ever been. The great question today is how to get the church out of the world. “Come out of her my people” (Rev. 18:4). “Come out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord” (2 Cor. 6:16). God desires and will have a clean, separate, and distinct church. The only road to such is the blood of Christ; the Holy Spirit infilling and possessing the church, together with earnest, prevailing prayer. A longing for and obtaining of unlimited Holy Spirit power through tarrying at the place of prayer will solve about every problem the church has to solve. It will put heaven into souls and souls eventually into heaven. As the Holy Spirit comes in, the covetous spirit goes out and the pocketbooks are emptied into the treasury of God where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt nor thieves break through and steal. Matt. 6:19, 20. The covetous person is not a Spirit-filled person. The covetous church is not a Spirit-filled church.

As the church once filled with the Holy Spirit and the spirit of prayer has lost that Holy Spirit and that spirit of prayer to that extent has she slidden backward and worldward. Better take an inventory and if not so filled and so prayerful as at one time, make confession and get down to earnest, honest, sincere, prevailing prayer once more, when the showers of blessings will begin to fall and saints will rejoice as they have in days of yore.

The Spirit of God and the spirit of the world are in deadly antagonism. In the lives of all the one must kill the other out of that heart. The spirit of the world will no more blend and stay with the Spirit of God than the Spirit of God will blend and stay where the spirit of the world is. The Holy Spirit waits in readiness to take the uppermost seat and to enthrone Himself with high honors in the heart of any and all who desire Him so to do.

The End