GOD has committed himself to us by his Word in our praying. The Word of God is the basis and the inspiration and the heart of prayer. Jesus Christ stands as the illustration of God’s Word, its illimitable good in promise as well as in realization. God takes nothing by halves. He gives nothing by halves. We can have the whole of him when he has the whole of us-His words of promise are so far-reaching, and so all-comprehending, that they seem to have deadened our comprehension and have paralyzed our praying. This appears when we consider those large words, when he almost exhausts human language in promises, as in “whatever,” “anything,” and in the all-inclusive “whatsoever,” and “all things.” These oft-repeated promises, so very great, seem to daze us, and instead of allowing them to move us to asking, testing, and receiving, we turn away full of wonder, but empty handed and with empty hearts.

We quote another passage from our Lord’s teaching about prayer. By the most solemn verification, he declares as follows:

And in that day ye shall ask me nothing; Verily, Verily, I say unto you: Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.

Twice in this passage he declares the answer, and pledging his father, “He will give it to you,” and declaring with impressive and most suggestive emphasis, “Ask, and ye shall receive.” So strong and so often did Jesus declare and repeat the answer as an inducement to pray, and as an inevitable result of prayer, the apostles held it as so fully and invincibly established, that prayer would be answered, they held it to be their main duty to urge and command men to pray. So firmly were they established as to the truth of the law of prayer as laid down by our Lord, that they were led to affirm that the answer to prayer was involved in and necessarily bound up with all right praying. God the Father and Jesus Christ, his Son, are both strongly committed by all the truth of their word and by the fidelity of their character, to answer prayer.

Not only do these and all the promises pledge Almighty God to answer prayer, but they assure us that the answer will be specific, and that the very thing for which we pray will be given.

Our Lord’s invariable teaching was that we receive that for which we ask, and obtain that for which we seek, and have that door opened at which we knock. This is according to our heavenly Father’s direction to us, and his giving to us for our asking. He will not disappoint us by not answering, neither will he deny us by giving us some other thing for which we have not asked, or by letting us find some other thing for which we have not sought, or by opening to us the wrong door, at which we were not knocking. If we ask bread, he will give us bread. If we ask an egg, he will give us an egg. If we ask a fish, he will give us a fish. Not something like bread, but bread itself will be given unto us. Not something like a fish, but a fish will be given. Not evil will be given us in answer to prayer, but good.

Earthly parents, though evil in nature, give for the asking, and answer to the crying of their children. The encouragement to prayer is transferred from our earthly father to our heavenly Father, from the evil to the good, to the supremely good; from the weak to the omnipotent, our heavenly Father, centering in himself all the highest conceptions of fatherhood, abler, readier, and much more than the best, and much more than the ablest earthly father. “How much more,” who can tell? Much more than our earthly father, will he supply all our needs, give us all good things, and enable us to meet every difficult duty and fulfill every law, though hard to flesh and blood, but made easy under the full supply of our heavenly Father’s beneficent and exhaustless help.

Here we have in symbol and as initial, more than an intimation of the necessity, not only of perseverance in prayer, but of the progressive stages of intentness and effort in the outlay of increasing spiritual force. Asking, seeking, and knocking. Here is an ascending scale from the mere words of asking, to a settled attitude of seeking, resulting in a determined, clamorous and vigorous direct effort of praying.

Just as God has commanded us to pray always, to pray everywhere, and to pray in everything, so he will answer always, everywhere and in everything.

God has plainly and with directness committed himself to answer prayer. If we fulfill the conditions of prayer, the answer is bound to come. The laws of nature are not so invariable and so inexorable as the promised answer to pray. The ordinances of nature might fail, but the ordinances of grace can never fail. There are no limitations, no adverse conditions, no weakness, no inability, which can or will hinder the answer to prayer. God’s doing for us when we pray has no limitations, is not hedged about, by provisos in himself, or in the peculiar circumstances of any particular case. If we really pray, God masters and defies all things and is above all conditions.

God explicitly says, “Call unto me, and I will answer.” There are no limitations, no hedges, no hindrances in the way of God fulfilling the promise. His word is at stake. His word is involved. God solemnly engages to answer prayer. Man is to look for the answer, be inspired by the expectation of the answer, and may with humble boldness demand the answer. God, who cannot lie, is bound to answer. He has voluntarily placed himself under obligation to answer the prayer of him who truly prays.

To God your every want

In instant prayer display;

Pray always; pray, and never faint;

Pray, without ceasing, pray.

In fellowship, alone,

To God with faith draw near;

Approach his courts, beseech his throne,

With all the power of prayer.

The prophets and the men of God of Old Testament times were unshaken in their faith in the absolute certainty of God fulfilling his promises to them. They rested in security on the word of God, and had no doubt whatever either as to the fidelity of God in answering prayer or of his willingness or ability. So much so that their history is marked by repeated asking and receiving at the hands of God.

The same is true of the early church. They received without question the doctrine their Lord and Master had so often affirmed that the answer to prayer was sure. The certainty of the answer to prayer was as fixed as God’s Word was true. The Holy Spirit dispensation was ushered in by the disciples carrying this faith into practice. When Jesus told them to “Tarry at Jerusalem till they were endued with power from on high,” they received it as a sure promise that if they obeyed the command, they would certainly receive the divine power. So in prayer for ten days they tarried in the upper room, and the promise was fulfilled. The answer came just as Jesus said.

So when Peter and John were arrested for healing the man who sat at the beautiful gate of the temple, after being threatened by the rulers in Jerusalem, they were released. “And being let go, they went to their own company,” they went to those with whom they were in affinity, those of like minds, and not to men of the world. Still believing in prayer and its power, they gave themselves to prayer, the prayer itself being recorded in Acts, chapter four. They recited some things to the Lord, and “when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spake the word of God with boldness.”

Here they were refilled for this special occasion with the Holy Spirit. The answer to prayer responded to their faith and prayer. The fullness of the Spirit always brings boldness. The cure for fear in the face of threatenings of the enemies of the Lord is being filled with the Spirit. This gives power to speak the word of the Lord with boldness. This gives courage and drives away fear.

WE put it to the front. We unfold it on a banner never to be lowered or folded, that God does hear and answer prayer. God has always heard and answered prayer. God will forever hear and answer prayer. He is the same yesterday, today and forever, ever blessed, ever to be adored. Amen. He changes not. As he has always answered prayer, so will he ever continue to do so.

To answer prayer is God’s universal rule. It is his unchangeable and irrepealable law to answer prayer. It is his invariable, specific and inviolate promise to answer prayer. The few denials to prayer in the Scriptures are the exceptions to the general rule, suggestive and startling by their fewness, exception and emphasis.

The possibilities of prayer, then, lie in the great truth, illimitable in its broadness, fathomless in its depths, exhaustless in its fullness, that God answers every prayer from every true soul who truly prays.

God’s Word does not say, “Call unto me, and you will thereby be trained into the happy art of knowing how to be denied. Ask, and you will learn sweet patience by getting nothing.” Far from it. But it is definite, clear and positive: “Ask, and it shall be given unto you.”

We have this case among many in the Old Testament:

Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, 0 that thou wouldst bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thy hand might be with me, and that thou wouldst keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me.

And God readily granted him the things which he had requested.

Hannah, distressed in soul because she was childless, and desiring a man child, repaired to the house of prayer, and prayed, and this is the record she makes of the direct answer she received: “For this child I prayed, and the Lord hath given me the petition which I asked of him.”

God’s promises and purposes go direct to the fact of giving for the asking. The answer to our prayers is the motive constantly presented in the Scriptures to encourage us to pray and to quicken us in this spiritual exercise. Take such strong, clear passages as these:

Call unto me, and I will answer thee. He shall call unto me, and I will answer. Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

This is Jesus Christ’s law of prayer. He does not say, “Ask, and something shall be given you.” Nor does he say, “Ask, and you will be trained into piety.” But it is that when you ask, the very thing asked for will be given. Jesus does not say, “Knock, and some door will be opened.” But the very door at which you are knocking will be opened. To make this doubly sure, Jesus Christ duplicates and reiterates the promise of the answer: “For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.”

Answered prayer is the spring of love, and is the direct encouragement to pray. “I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.”

The certainty of the father’s giving is assured by the father’s relation, and by the ability and goodness of the father. Earthly parents, frail, infirm, and limited in goodness and ability, give when the child asks and seeks. The parental heart responds most readily to the cry for bread. The hunger of the child touches and wins the father heart. So God, our heavenly Father, is as easily and strongly moved by our prayers as the earthly parent. “If ye being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father in heaven give good gifts unto them that ask him?” “Much more,” just as much more does God’s goodness, tenderness and ability exceed that of man’s.

Just as the asking is specific, so also is the answer specific. The child does not ask for one thing and get another. He does not cry for bread, and get a stone. He does not ask for an egg, and receive a scorpion. He does not ask for a fish, and get a serpent. Christ demands specific asking. He responds to specific praying by specific giving.

To give the very thing prayed for, and not something else, is fundamental to Christ’s law of praying. No prayer for the cure of blind eyes did he ever answer by curing deaf ears. The very thing prayed for is the very thing which he gives. The exceptions to this are confirmatory of this great law of prayer. He who asks for bread gets bread, and not a stone. If he asks for a fish, he receives a fish, and not a serpent. No cry is so pleading and so powerful as the child’s cry for bread. The cravings of hunger, the appetite felt, and the need realized, all create and propel the crying of the child. Our prayers must be as earnest, as needy, and as hungry as the hungry child’s cry for bread. Simple, artless, direct, and specific must be our praying, according to Christ’s law of prayer and his teaching of God’s fatherhood.

The illustration and enforcement of the law of prayer are found in the specific answers given to prayer. Gethsemane is the only seeming exception. The prayer of Jesus Christ in that awful hour of darkness and hell was conditioned on these words, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” But beyond these utterances of our Lord was the soul and life prayer of the willing, suffering divine victim, “Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” The prayer was answered, the angel came, strength was imparted, and the meek sufferer in silence drank the bitter cup.

Two cases of unanswered prayer are recorded in the Scriptures in addition to the Gethsemane prayer of our Lord. The first was that of David for the life of his baby child, but for good reasons to Almighty God the request was not granted. The second was that of Paul for the removal of the thorn in the flesh, which was denied. But we are constrained to believe these must have been notable as exceptions to God’s rule, as illustrated in the history of prophet, priest, apostle and saint, as recorded in the divine Word. There must have been unrevealed reasons which moved God to veer from his settled and fixed rule to answer prayer by giving the specific thing prayed for.

Our Lord did not hold the Syrophoenician woman in the school of unanswered prayer to test and mature her faith, neither did he answer her prayer by healing or saving her husband. She asks for the healing of her daughter, and Christ healed the daughter. She received the very thing for which she asked the Lord Jesus Christ. It was in the school of answered prayer our Lord disciplined and perfected her faith, and it was by giving her a specific answer to her prayer. Her prayer centered on her daughter. She prayed for the one thing, the healing of her child. And the answer of our Lord centered likewise on the daughter.

We tread altogether too gingerly upon the great and precious promises of God, and too often we ignore them wholly. The promise is the ground on which faith stands in asking of God. This is the one basis of prayer. We limit God’s ability. We measure God’s ability and willingness to answer prayer by the standard of men. We limit the Holy One of Israel. How full of benefaction and remedy to suffering mankind are the promises as given us by James in his Epistle, fifth chapter! How personal and mediate do they make God in prayer! They are a direct challenge to our faith. They are encouraging to large expectations in all the requests we make of God. Prayer affects God in a direct manner, and has its aim and end inaffecting him. Prayer takes hold of God, and induces him to do large things for us, whether personal or relative, temporal or spiritual, earthly or heavenly.

The great gap between Bible promises to prayer and the income from praying is almost unspeakably great, so much so that it is a prolific source of infidelity. It breeds unbelief in prayer as a great moral force, and begets doubt really as to the power of prayer. Christianity needs today, above all things else, men and women who can in prayer put God to the test and who can prove his promises. When this happy day for the world begins, it will be earth’s brightest day, and will be heaven’s dawning day on earth. These are the sort of men and women needed in this modern day in the church. It is not educated men who are needed for the times. It is not more money that is required. It is not more machinery, more organization, more ecclesiastical laws, but it is men and women who know how to pray, who can in prayer lay hold upon God and bring him down to earth, and move him to take hold of earth’s affairs mightily and put life and power into the church and into all of its machinery.

The church and the world greatly need saints who can bridge this wide gap between the praying done and the small number of answers received. Saints are needed whose faith is bold enough and sufficiently far-reaching to put God to the test. The cry comes even now out of heaven to the people of the present-day church, as it sounded forth in the days of Malachi: “Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts.” God is waiting to be put to the test by his people in prayer. He delights in being put to the test on his promises. It is his highest pleasure to answer prayer to prove the reliability of his promises. Nothing worthy of God nor of great value to men will be accomplished till this is done.

Our gospel belongs to the miraculous. It was projected on the miraculous plane. It cannot be maintained but by the supernatural. Take the supernatural out of our holy religion, and its life and power are gone, and it degenerates into a mere mode of morals. The miraculous is divine power. Prayer has in it this same power. Prayer brings this divine power into the ranks of men and puts it to work. Prayer brings into the affairs of earth a supernatural element. Our gospel when truly presented is the power of God. Never was the church more in need of those who can and will test Almighty God. Never did the church need more than now those who can raise up everywhere memorials of God’s supernatural power, memorials of answers to prayer, memorials of promises fulfilled. These would do more to silence the enemy of souls, the foe of God and the adversary of the church than any modern scheme or present day plan for the success of the gospel. Such memorials reared by praying people would dumbfound God’s foes, strengthen weak saints, and would fill strong saints with triumphant rapture.

The most prolific source of infidelity, and that which maligns and hinders praying, and that which obscures the being and glory of God most effectually, is unanswered prayer. Better not to pray at all than to go through a dead form, which secures no answer, brings no glory to God, and supplies no good to man. Nothing so hardens the heart and nothing so blinds us to the unseen and the eternal, as this kind of prayerless praying.

THE earthly career of our Lord Jesus Christ was no mere episode, a sort of interlude, in his eternal life. What he was and what he did on earth was neither abnormal nor divergent, but characteristic. What he was and what he did on earth is but the figure and the illustration of what he is and what he is doing in heaven. He is “the same yesterday and today, and forever.” This statement is the divine summary of the eternal unity and changelessness of his character. His earthly life was made up largely of hearing and answering prayer. His heavenly life is devoted to the same divine business. Really the Old Testament is the record of God hearing and answering prayer. The whole Bible deals largely with this all important subject.

Christ’s miracles are object lessons. They are living pictures. They talk to us. They have hands which take hold of us. Many valuable lessons do these miracles teach us. In their diversity, they refresh us. They show us the matchless power of Jesus Christ, and at the same time discover to us his marvelous compassion for suffering humanity. These miracles disclose to us his ability to endlessly diversify his operations. God’s method in working with man is not the same in all cases. He does not administer his grace in rigid ruts. There is endless variety in his movements. There is marvelous diversity in his operations. He does not fashion his creations in the same mold. Just so our Lord is not circumscribed in his working nor trammeled by models. He works independently. He is his own architect. He furnishes his own patterns which have unlimited variety.

When we consider our Lord’s miracles, we discover that quite a number were performed unconditionally. At least there were no conditions accompanying them so far as the divine record shows. At his own instance, without being solicited to do so, to glorify God and to manifest his own glory and power, this class of miracles was wrought. Many of his mighty works were performed at the moving of his compassion and at the call of suffering and need, as well as at the call of his power. But a number of them were performed by him in answer to prayer. Some were wrought in answer to the personal prayers of those who were afflicted. Others were performed in answer to the prayers of the friends of those who were afflicted. Those miracles wrought in answer to prayer are very instructive in the uses of prayer. In these conditional miracles, faith holds the primacy and prayer is faith’s deputy. We have an illustration of the importance of faith as the condition on which the exercise of Christ’s power was based, or the channel through which it flowed, in the incident of a visit he made to Nazareth with its results, or rather its lack of results. Here is the record of the case:

And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. And he marvelled because of their unbelief.

Those people at Nazareth may have prayed our Lord to raise their dead, or open the eyes of the blind, or heal the lepers, but it was all in vain. The absence of faith, however much of performance may be seen, restrains the exercise of God’s power, paralyzes the arm of Christ, and turns to death all signs of life : Unbelief is the one thing which seriously hinders Almighty God in doing mighty works. Matthew’s record of this visit to Nazareth says, “And he did not any mighty works there because of their unbelief.” Lack of faith ties the hands of Almighty God in his working among the children of men. Prayer to Christ must always be based, backed, and impregnated with faith.

The miracle of miracles in the earthly career of our Lord, the raising of Lazarus from the dead, was remarkable for its prayer accompaniment. It was really a prayer issue, something after the issue between the prophets of Baal and Elijah. It was not a prayer for help. It was one of thanksgiving and assured confidence. Let us read it:

And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I know that thou hearest me always. But because of the people that stand by, I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.

It was a prayer mainly for the benefit of those who were present, that they might know that God was with him because he had answered his prayers, and that faith in God might be radiated in their hearts.

Answered prayers are sometimes the most convincing and faith-creating forces. Unanswered prayers chill the atmosphere and freeze the soil of faith. If Christians knew how to pray so as to have answers to their prayers, evident, immediate, and demonstrative answers from God, faith would be more widely diffused, would become more general, would be more profound, and would be a much more mighty force in the world.

What a valuable lesson of faith and intercessory prayer does the miracle of the healing of the centurion’s servant bring to us! The simplicity and strength of the faith of this Roman officer are remarkable, for he believed that it was not needful for our Lord to go directly to his house to have his request granted, “But speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.” And our Lord puts his mark upon this man’s faith by saying, “Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.” This man’s prayer was the expression of his strong faith, and such faith brought the answer promptly.

The same invaluable lesson we get from the prayer miracle of the case of the Syrophoenician woman who went to our Lord in behalf of her stricken daughter, making her daughter’s case her own, by pleading, “Lord, help me.” Here was importunity, holding on, pressing her case, refusing to let go or to be denied. A strong case it was of intercessory prayer and its benefits. Our Lord seemingly held her off for a while but at last yielded, and put his seal upon her strong faith: “0 woman, great is thy faith! Be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” What a lesson on praying for others and its large benefits!

Individual cases could be named, where the afflicted persons interceded for themselves, illustrations of wonderful things wrought by our Lord in answer to the cries of those who were afflicted. As we read the evangelists’ record, the pages fairly glisten with records of our Lord’s miracles wrought in answer to prayer, showing the wonderful things accomplished by the use of this divinely appointed means of grace.

If we turn back to Old Testament times, we have no lack of instances of prayer miracles. The saints of those days were well acquainted with the power of prayer to move God to do great things. Natural laws did not stand in the way of Almighty God when he was appealed to by his praying ones. What a marvelous record is that of Moses as those successive plagues were visited upon Egypt in the effort to make Pharaoh let the children of Israel go that they might serve God! As one after another of these plagues came, Pharaoh would beseech Moses, “Entreat the Lord your God that he may take away this death.” And as the plagues themselves were miracles, prayer removed them as quickly as they were sent by Almighty God. The same hand which sent these destructive agencies upon Egypt was moved by the prayers of his servant Moses to remove these same plagues. And the removal of the plagues in answer to prayer was as remarkable a display of divine power as was the sending of the plagues in the first instance. The removal in answer to prayer would do as much to show God’s being and his power as would the plagues themselves. They were miracles of prayer.

All down the line in Old Testament days we see these prayer miracles. God’s praying servants had not the least doubt that prayer would work marvelous results and bring the supernatural into the affairs of earth. Miracles and prayer went hand in hand. They were companions. The one was the cause, the other was the effect. The one brought the other into existence. The miracle was the proof that God heard and answered prayer. The miracle was the divine demonstration that God, who was in heaven, interfered in earth’s affairs, intervened to help men, and worked supernaturally if need be to accomplish his purposes in answer to prayer.

Passing to the days of the early church, we find the same divine record of prayer miracles. The sad news came to Peter that Dorcas was dead and he was wanted at Joppa. Promptly he made his way to that place. Peter put everybody out of the room, and then he kneeled down and prayed, and with faith said, “Tabitha, arise,” and she opened her eyes and sat up. Knee work on the part of Peter did the work. Prayer brought things to pass and saved Dorcas for further work on earth.

Paul was on that noted journey to Rome under guard, and had been shipwrecked on an island. The chief man of the island was Publius, and his old father was critically ill of a bloody flux. Paul laid his hands on the old man, and prayed for him, and God came to the rescue and healed the sick man. Prayer brought the thing desired to pass. God interfered with the laws of nature, either suspending or setting them aside for a season, and answered the prayer of this praying servant of his. And the answer to prayer among those heathen people convinced them that a supernatural power was at work among them. In fact so true was this that they seemed to think a supernatural being had come among them.

After Herod killed James with the sword, Herod had Peter put in prison. The young church was greatly concerned, but they neither lost heart nor gave themselves over to needless fretting and worrying. They had learned before this from whence their help came. They had been schooled in the lesson of prayer. God had intervened before in the behalf of his servants and interfered when his cause was at stake. “Prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.” An angel on swift wings comes to the rescue, and in a marvelous and supernatural way releases Peter and leaves the prison doors locked. Locks and prison doors and an unfriendly king cannot stand in the way of Almighty God when his people cry in prayer unto him. Miracles if need be will be wrought in their behalf to fulfill his promises and to carry forward his plans. After this order does the Word of God illustrate and enlarge and confirm the possibilities of prayer by what may be termed “Prayer miracles.”

How quickly to our straits follow our enlargements! God wrought a wonderful work through Samson in enabling him with a crude instrument, the jawbone of an ass, to slay a thousand men, giving him a great deliverance. Shortly afterward Samson was abnormally thirsty, and he was unable to obtain any water. It seemed as if he would perish with thirst. God had saved him from the hands of the Philistines. Could he not as well save him from thirst? “So Samson cried unto the Lord, and God clave a hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout, and when he had drunk, his spirit came again and he revived.” God could bring water out of the jawbone just as well as he could give victory by it to Samson. God could change that which had been death-dealing to his enemies and make it life-giving to his servant. God can and will work a miracle in answer to prayer to deliver his friends, sooner than he will work one to destroy his enemies. He does both, however, in answer to prayer.

All natural forces are under God’s control. He did not create the world and put it under law, and then retire from it, to work out its own destiny, irrespective of the welfare of his intelligent creatures. Natural laws are simply God’s laws, by which he governs and regulates all things in nature. Nature is nothing but God’s servant. God is above nature, God is not the slave of nature. This being true, God can and will suspend the working of nature’s laws, can hold them in abeyance by his almighty hand, can for the time being set them aside, to fulfill his higher purposes in redemption. It is no violation of nature’s laws when, in answer to prayer, he who is above nature makes nature his servant, and causes nature to carry out his plans and purposes.

This is the explanation of that wonderful prayer miracle of Old Testament times, when Joshua, in the strength and power of the Lord God, commanded the sun and moon to stand still to give time to complete the victory over the enemies of Israel. Why should it be thought a thing incredible that the God of nature and of grace should interfere with his own natural laws for a short season in answer to prayer, and for the good of his cause? Is God tied hand and foot? Has he so circumscribed himself that he cannot operate the law of prayer? Is the law of nature superior to the law of prayer? Not by any means. He is the God of prayer as well as the God of nature. Both prayer and nature have God as their maker, their ruler and their executor. And prayer is God’s servant, just as nature is his servant.

The prayer force in God’s government is as strong as any other force, and all natural and other forces must give way before the force of prayer. Sun, moon and stars are under God’s control in answer to prayer. Rain, sunshine and drought obey his will. “Fire and hail, snow and vapor, stormy wind fulfilling his word.” Disease and health are governed by him. All, all things in heaven and earth, are absolutely under the control of him who made heaven and earth, and who governs all things according to his own will.

Prayer still works miracles among men and brings to pass great things. It is as true now as when James wrote his epistle, “The effectual fervent, prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” And when the records of eternity are read out to an assembled world, then will it appear how much prayer has wrought in this world. Little is now seen of the fruits of prayer compared to all that it has accomplished and is accomplishing. At the judgment day, then will God disclose the things which were brought to pass in this world through the prayers of the saints. Many occurrences which are now taken as a matter of course will then be seen to have happened because of the Lord’s praying ones.

The work of George Muller in Bristol, England, was a miracle of the nineteenth century. It will take the opening of the books at the great judgment day to disclose all he wrought through prayer. This godly man never asked anyone for money for running expenses at his orphanage where hundreds of fatherless and motherless children were cared for. His practice was always to ask God for just what was needed, and the answers which came to him read like a record of apostolic times. He prayed for everything and trusted implicitly to God to supply all his needs. And it is a matter of record that never did he and the orphans ever lack for any good thing.

Of a holy man who has done so much for Christ and suffering humanity, it was said at the grave about him:

He prayed up the walls of an hospital, and the hearts of the nurses. He prayed mission stations into being, and missionaries into faith. He prayed open the hearts of the rich, and gold from the most distant lands.

Luther is quoted as once saying: “The Christian’s trade is praying.” Certainly, for a great reason, the preacher’s trade should be praying. We fear greatly that many preachers know nothing of this trade of praying, and hence they never succeed at this trade. A severe apprenticeship in the trade of praying must be served in order to become a journeyman in it. Not only is it true that there are few journeymen at work at this praying trade, but many have never even been apprentices at praying. No wonder so little is accomplished by them. God and the supernatural are left out of their programs.

Many do not understand this trade of praying because they have never learned it, and hence do not work at it. Many miracles ought to be worked by our praying. Why not? Is the arm of the Lord shortened that he cannot save? Is his ear heavy that he cannot hear? Has prayer lost its power because iniquity abounds and the love of many has grown cold? Has God changed from what he once was? To all these queries we enter an emphatic negative. God can as easily today work miracles by praying as he did in the days of old. “I am the Lord; I change not.” “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”

He who works miracles by praying will first of all work the chief miracle on himself. Oh, that we might fully understand well the Christian’s trade of praying, and follow the trade day by day and thus make for ourselves great spiritual wealth!

In the fearful contest in this world between God and the devil, between good and evil, and between heaven and hell, prayer is the mighty force for overcoming Satan, giving dominion over sin, and defeating hell. Only praying leaders are to be counted on in this dreadful conflict. Praying men alone are to be put to the front. These are the only sort who are able to successfully contend with all the evil forces.

The prayers of all saints are a perpetual force against all the powers of darkness. These prayers are a mighty energy in overcoming the world, the flesh and the devil, and in shaping the destiny of God’s movements, to overcome evil and get the victory over the devil and all his works. The character and energy of God’s movements lie in prayer. Victory is to come at the end of praying.

The wonders of God’s power are to be kept alive, made real and present, and repeated only by prayer. God is not now so evident in the world, so almighty in manifestation as of old, not because miracles have passed away, nor because God has ceased to work, but because prayer has been shorn of its simplicity, its majesty, and its power. God still lives, and miracles still live while God lives and acts, for miracles are God’s ways of acting. Prayer is dwarfed, withered, and petrified when faith in God is staggered by doubts of lies ability, or through the shrinking caused by fear. When faith has a telescopic far-off vision of God, prayer works no miracles, and brings no marvels of deliverance. But when God is seen by faith’s closest, fullest eye, prayer makes a history of wonders.

Think about God. Make much of him, till he broadens and fills the horizon d faith. Then prayer will come into its marvelous inheritance of wonders. The marvels of prayer are seen when we remember that God’s purposes are changed by prayer, God’s vengeance is stayed by prayer, and God’s penalty is remitted by prayer. The whole range of God’s dealing with man is affected by prayer. Here is a force which must be increasingly used, that of prayer, a force which all the events of life ought to be subjected.

To “pray without ceasing,” to pray in everything, and to pray everywhere–these commands of continuity are expressive of the sleepless energy of prayer, of the exhaustless possibilities of prayer, and of its exacting necessity. Prayer can do all things. Prayer must do all things.

Prayer is the simplest form of speech

That infant lips can try;

Prayer the sublimest strains that reach

The majesty on high.

Prayer is asking God for something, and for something which he has promised. Prayer is using the divinely appointed means for obtaining what we need and for accomplishing what God proposes to do on earth.

Prayer is appointed to convey

The blessings God designs to give;

Long as they live should Christians pray,

They learn to pray when first they live.

And prayer brings to us blessings which we need, and which only God can give, and which prayer can alone convey to us.

In their broadest fullness, the possibilities of prayer are to be found in the very nature of prayer. This service of prayer is not a mere rite, a ceremony through which we go, a sort of performance. Prayer is going to God for something needed and desired. Prayer is simply asking God to do for us what he has promised us he will do if we ask him. The answer is a part of prayer, and is God’s part of it. God’s doing the thing asked for is as much a part of the prayer as the asking of the thing is prayer. Asking is man’s part. Giving is God’s part. The praying belongs to us. The answer belongs to God.

Man makes the plea and God makes the answer. The plea and the answer compose the prayer. God is more ready, more willing and more anxious to give the answer than man is to give the asking. The possibilities of prayer lie in the ability of man to ask large things and in the ability of God to give large things.

God’s only condition and limitation of prayer is found in the character of the one who prays. The measure of our faith and praying is the measure of his giving. As our Lord said to the blind man, “according to your faith be it unto you,” so it is the same in praying, “According to the measure of your asking, be it unto you.” God measures the answer according to the prayer. He is limited by the law of prayer in the measure of the answers he gives to prayer. As is the measure of prayer, so will be the answer.

If the person praying has the characteristics which warrant praying, then the possibilities are unlimited. They are declared to be “all things whatsoever.” Here is no limitation in character or kind, in circumference or condition. The man who prays can pray for anything and for everything, and God will give everything and anything. If we limit God in the asking, he will be limited in the giving.

Looking ahead, God declares in his Word that the wonder of wonders will be so great in the last days that everything animate and inanimate will be excited by his power:

For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered nor come to mind. But be ye glad and rejoice, forever, in that which I create; for behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.

But these days of God’s mighty working, the days of his magnificent and wonder-creating power, will be days of magnificent praying.

And it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.

It has ever been so. God’s marvelous, miracle-working times have been times of marvelous, miracle-working praying. The greatest thing in God’s worship by his own estimate is praying. Its chief service and its distinguishing feature is prayer:

Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offering and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.

This was true under all the gorgeous rites and parade of ceremonies under the Jewish worship. Sacrifice, offering, and the atoning blood were all to be impregnated with prayer. The smoke of burnt offering and perfumed incense which filled God’s house was to be but the flame of prayer, and all of God’s people were to be anointed priests to minister at his altar of prayer. So all things were to be done with mighty prayer, because mighty prayer was the fruitage and inspiration of mighty faith. But much more is it now true every way under the more simple service of the gospel.

The course of nature, the movements of the planets, and the clouds, have yielded to the influence of prayer, and God has changed and checked the order of the sun and the seasons under the mighty energies of prayer. It is only necessary to note the remarkable incident when Joshua, through this divine means of prayer, caused the sun and the moon to stand still so that a more complete victory could be given to the armies of Israel in the contest with the armies of the Amorites.

If we believe God’s Word, we are bound to believe that prayer affects God, and affects him mightily; that prayer avails, and that prayer avails mightily. There are wonders in prayer because there are wonders in God. Prayer has no talismanic influence. It is no mere fetish. It has no so-called powers of magic. It is simply making known our requests to God for things agreeable to his will in the name of Christ. It is just yielding our requests to a father, who knows all things, who has control of all things, and who is able to do all things.Prayer is infinite ignorance trusting to the wisdom of God. Prayer is the voice of need crying out to him who is inexhaustible in resources. Prayer is helplessness reposing with childlike confidence on the word of its Father in heaven. Prayer is but the verbal expression of the heart of perfect confidence in the infinite wisdom, the power and the riches of Almighty God, who has placed at our command in prayer everything we need.

How all the gracious results of such gracious times are to come to the world through prayer, we are taught in God’s Word. God’s heart seems to overflow with delight at the prospect of thus blessing his people. By the mouth of the prophet Joel, God thus speaks:

Fear not, 0 land; be glad and rejoice; for the Lord will do great things.” Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field; for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit, the fig-tree and the vine do yield their strength. Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God; for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month. And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the canker worm and the caterpillar, and the palmer worm, my great army which I sent among you. And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you; and my people shall never be ashamed. And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and none else; and my people shall never be ashamed.

What wonderful material things are these which God proposes to bestow upon his people! They are marvelous temporal blessings he promises to bestow on them. They almost astonish the mind when they are studied. But God does not restrict his large blessings to temporal things. Looking down the ages, he foresees Pentecost, and makes these exceeding great and precious promises concerning the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, these very words being quoted by Peter on that glad day of Pentecost:

And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; And also upon the servants and upon the hand maidens in those days will I pour out my Spirit. And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke; The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord shall come. And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call.

But these marvelous blessings will not be bestowed upon the people h. sovereign power, nor be given unconditionally. God’s people must do some thing precedent to such glorious results. Fasting and prayer must play an important part as conditions of receiving such large blessings. By the mouth of the same prophet, God thus speaks:

Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning; And rend your heart, and not your garments; and turn unto the Lord your God; for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. Who knoweth if he will turn and repent, and leave a blessing behind him, even a meat offering, and a drink offering, unto the Lord your God? Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly. Gather the people; sanctify the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children; and those that suck the breasts; let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet. Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, 0 Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them; Wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God? Then will the Lord be jealous for his land, and pity his people. Yea, the Lord will answer and say unto his people, Behold I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and ye shall be satisfied therewith; and I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen.”

Prayer reaches even as far as the presence of God goes. It reaches everywhere because God is everywhere. Let us read from Psalm 139:1:

If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost part of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.”

This may be said as truly of prayer as it is said of the God of prayer. The mysteries of death have been fathomed by prayer, and its victims have been brought back to life by the power of prayer, because God holds dominion over death, and prayer reaches where God reigns. Elisha and Elijah both invaded the realms of death by their prayers, and asserted and established the power of God as the power of prayer. Peter by prayer brings back to life the saintly Dorcas to the early church. Paul doubtless exercised the power of prayer as he fell upon and embraced Eutychus who fell out of the window when Paul preached at night.

Our Lord several times explicitly declared the far-reaching possibilities and the unlimited nature of prayer as covering “all things whatsoever.” The conditions of prayer are exalted into a personal union with himself. That successful praying glorified God was the condition upon which laborers of first quality and sufficient in numbers were to be secured to press forward God’s work in the world. The giving of all good things is conditioned upon asking for them. The giving of the Holy Spirit to God’s children is based upon the asking of the children of God. God’s will on earth can be secured only by prayer. Daily bread is obtained and sanctified by prayer. Reverence, forgiveness of sins, and deliverance from the evil one, and salvation from temptation, are in the hands of prayer.

The first jeweled foundation Christ lays as the basic principle of his religion in the Sermon on the Mount reads on this wise: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” As prayer follows from the inner sense of need, and prayer is the utterance of a deep poverty-stricken spirit, so it is evident he who is “poor in spirit” is where he can pray and where he does pray.

Prayer is a tremendous force in the world. Take this picture of prayer and its wonderful possibilities. God’s cause is quiet and motionless on the earth. An angel, strong and impatient to be of service, waits round about the throne of God in heaven, and to move things on earth and give impetus to the movements of God’s cause in this world, he gathers all the prayers of all God’s saints in all ages, and puts them before God just like Aaron used to cloud, flavor, and sweeten himself with the delicious incense when he entered the holy sanctuary, made aweful by the immediate presence of God. The angel impregnates all the air with that holy offering of prayers, and then takes its fiery body and casts it on the earth.

Note the remarkable result. “There were voices and thunderings and lightnings and an earthquake.” What tremendous force is this which has thus convulsed the earth? The answer is that it is the “prayers of the saints,” turned loose by the angel round about the throne, who has charge of those prayers. This mighty force is prayer, like the power of earth’s mightiest dynamite.

Take another fact showing the wonders of prayer wrought by Almighty God in answer to the praying of his true prophet. The nation of God’s people was fearfully apostate in head and heart and life. A man of God went to the apostate king with the fearful message which meant so much to the land, “There shall not be rain nor dew these years but according to my word.” Whence this mighty force which can stay the clouds, seal up the rain, and hold back the dew? Who is this who speaks with such authority? Is there any force which can do this on earth? Only one, and that force is prayer, wielded in the hands of a praying prophet of God. It is he who has influence with God and over God in prayer, who thus dares to assume such authority over the forces of nature. This man Elijah is skilled in the use of that tremendous force. “And Elijah prayed earnestly, and it rained not on the earth for three years and six months.”

But this is not all the story. He who could by prayer lock up the clouds and seal up the rain, could also unlock the clouds and unseal the rain by the same mighty power of prayer. “And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth gave forth her fruit.”

Mighty is the power of prayer. Wonderful are its fruits. Remarkable things are brought to pass by men of prayer. Many are the wonders of prayer wrought by an almighty hand. The evidences of prayer’s accomplishments almost stagger us. They challenge our faith. They encourage our expectations when we pray.

From a cursory summary like this, we get a bird’s-eye view of the large possibilities of prayer and the urgent necessity of prayer. We see how God commits himself into the hands of those who truly pray. Great are the wonders of prayer because great is the God who hears and answers prayer. Great are these wonders because great are the rich promises made by a great God to those who pray.

We have seen prayer’s far-reaching possibilities and its absolute, unquestioned necessity, and we have also seen that the foregoing particulars and elaboration were requisite in order to bring the subject more clearly, truly and strongly before our minds. The church more than ever needs profound convictions of the vast importance of prayer in prosecuting the work committed to it. More praying must be done and better praying if the church shall be able to perform the difficult, delicate, and responsible task given to it by her Lord and master. Defeat awaits a nonpraying church. Success is sure to follow a church given to much prayer. The supernatural element in the church, without which it must fail, comes only through praying. More time, in this busy bustling age, must be given to prayer by a God-called church. More thought must be given to prayer in this thoughtless, silly age of superficial religion. More heart and soul must be in the praying that is done if the church would go forth in the strength of her Lord and perform the wonders which is her heritage by divine promise.

O Spirit of the living God,

In all thy plenitude of grace,

Where’er the foot of man hath trod,

Descend on our apostate race.

Give tongues of fire and hearts of love,

To preach the reconciling word,

Give power and unction from above,

Where’er the joyful sound is heard.

It might be in order to give an instance or two in the life of Rev. John Wesley, showing some remarkable displays of spiritual power. Many times it is stated this noted man gathered his company together, and prayed all night, or till the mighty power of God came upon them. It was at a watch night service, at Fetter Lane, December 31, 1738, when Charles and John Wesley, with Whitfield, sat up till after midnight singing and praying. This is the account:

About three o’clock in the morning, as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us, so that many cried out for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground. As soon as we had recovered a little from that awe and amazement at the presence of his majesty, we broke out with one voice,

“We praise thee, 0 God! We acknowledge thee to be the Lord!”

On another occasion,Mr. Wesley gives us this account:

After midnight, about a hundred of us walked home together, singing, rejoicing and praising God.

Often does this godly man make the record to this effect, “We continued in ministering the Word and in prayer and praise till morning.”

One of his all-night wrestlings in prayer alone with God is said to have greatly affected a Catholic priest, who was really awakened by the occurrence to a realization of his spiritual condition.

As often as God manifested his power in scriptural times in working wonders through prayer, he has not left himself without witness in modern times. Prayer brings the Holy Spirit upon men today in answer to importunate, continued prayer just as it did before Pentecost. The wonders of prayer have not ceased.

PRAYER and the divine providence are closely related. They stand in close companionship. They cannot possibly be separated. So closely connected are they that to deny one is to abolish the other. Prayer supposes a providence, while providence is the result of and belongs to prayer. All answers to prayer are but the intervention of the providence of God in the affairs of men. Providence has to do specially with praying people. Prayer, providence, and the Holy Spirit are a trinity, which cooperate with each other and are in perfect harmony with one another. Prayer is but the request of man for God through the Holy Spirit to interfere in behalf of him who prays.

What is termed providence is the divine superintendence over earth and its affairs. It implies gracious provisions which Almighty God makes for all his creatures, animate and inanimate, intelligent or otherwise. Once we admit that God is the creator and preserver of all men, and concede that he is wise and intelligent, we are logically driven to the conclusion that Almighty God has a direct superintendence of those whom he has created and whom he preserves in being. In fact, creation and preservation suppose a superintending providence. What is called divine providence is simply Almighty God governing the world for its best interests, and overseeing everything for the good of mankind.

Men talk about a “general providence” as separate from a “special providence.” There is no general providence but what is made up of special providences. A general supervision on the part of God supposes a special and individual supervision of each person, yes, even every creature, animal and all alike.

God is everywhere, watching, superintending, overseeing, governing everything in the highest interest of man, and carrying forward his plans and executing his purposes in creation and redemption. He is not an absentee God. He did not make the world with all that is in it, and turn it over to socalled natural laws, and then retire into the secret places of the universe having no regard for it or for the working of his laws. His hand is on the throttle. The work is not beyond his control. Earth’s inhabitants and its affairs are not running independently of Almighty God.

Any and all providences are special providences, and prayer and this sort of providences work hand in hand. God’s hand is in everything. None are beyond him nor beneath his notice. Not that God orders everything which comes to pass. Man is still a free agent, but the wisdom of Almighty God comes out when we remember that while man is free, and the devil is abroad in the land, God can superintend and overrule earth’s affairs for the good of man and for his glory, and cause even the wrath of man to praise him.

Nothing occurs by accident under the superintendence of an all-wise and perfectly just God. Nothing happens by chance in God’s moral or natural government. God is a God of order, a God of law, but nonetheless a superintendent in the interest of his intelligent and redeemed creatures. Nothing can take place without the knowledge of God.

His all surrounding sight surveys

Our rising and our rest;

Our public walks, our private ways,

The secrets of our breasts.

Jesus Christ sets this matter at rest when he says, “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not, therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.”

God cannot be ruled out of the world. The doctrine of prayer brings him directly into the world, and moves him to a direct interference with all of this world’s affairs.

To rule Almighty God out of the providences of life is to strike a direct blow at prayer and its power. Nothing takes place in the world without God’s consent, yet not in a sense that he either approves everything or is responsible for all things which happen. God is not the author of sin.

The question is sometimes asked, “Is God in everything?” as if there are some things which are outside of the government of God, beyond his attention, with which he is not concerned. If God is not in everything, what .is the Christian doing praying according to Paul’s directions to the Philippians?

Be careful for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.

Are we to pray for some things and about things with which God has nothing to do? According to the doctrine that God is not in everything, then we are outside the realm of God when “in everything we make our requests unto God.

Then what will we do with that large promise so comforting to all of God’s saints in all ages and in all climes, a promise which belongs to prayer and which is embraced in a special providence: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God”?

If God is not in everything, then what are the things we are to expect from the “all things” which “work together for good to them that love God”? And if God is not in everything, in his providence what are the things which are to be left out of our praying? We can lay it down as a proposition, borne out by Scripture, which has a sure foundation, that nothing ever comes into the life of God’s saints without his consent. God is always there when it occurs. He is not far away. He whose eye is on the sparrow is also upon his saints. His presence which fills immensity is always where his saints are. “Certainly I will be with thee,” is the word of God to every child of his.

“The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him and delivereth them.” And without God’s permission, nothing can touch those who fear God. Nothing can break through the encampment without the permission of the captain of the Lord’s hosts. Sorrows, afflictions, want, trouble, or even death, cannot enter this divine encampment without the consent of Almighty God, and even then it is to be used by God in his plans for the good of his saints and for carrying out his plans and purposes:

For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

These evil things, unpleasant and afflictive, may come with divine permission, but God is on the spot, his hand is in all of them, and he sees to it that they are woven into his plans. He causes them to be overruled for the good of his people, and eternal good is brought out of them. These things, with hundreds of others, belong to the disciplinary processes of Almighty God in administering his government for the children of men.

The providence of God reaches as far as the realm of prayer. It has to do with everything for which we pray. Nothing is too small for the eye of God, nothing too insignificant for his notice and his care. God’s providence has to do with even the stumbling of the feet of his saints:

For he shall give his angels charge concerning thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Read again our Lord’s words about the sparrow, for he says, “Five sparrows are sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God.” Paul asks the pointed question, “Doth God care for oxen?” His care reaches to the smallest things and has to do with the most insignificant matters which concern men. He who believes in the God of providence is prepared to see his hand in all things which come to him, and can pray over everything.

Not that the saint who trusts the God of providence, and who takes all things to God in prayer, can explain the mysteries of divine providence, but the praying ones recognize God in everything, see him in all that comes to them, and are ready to say as John said to Peter at the Sea of Galilee, “It is the Lord.”

Praying saints do not presume to interpret God’s dealings with them nor undertake to explain God’s providences, but they have learned to trust God in the dark as well as in the light, to have faith in God even when “cares like a wild deluge come, and storms of sorrow fall.”

“Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.” Praying saints rest themselves on the words of Jesus to Peter, “What I do thou knowest not now but thou shalt know hereafter.” None but the praying ones can see God’s hands in the providences of life. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” shall see God here in his providences, in his Word, in his church. These are they who do not rule God out of earth’s affairs, and who believe God interferes with matters of earth for them.

While God’s providence is over all men, yet his supervision and administration of his government are peculiarly in the interest of his people.

Prayer brings God’s providence into action. Prayer puts God to work in overseeing and directing earth’s affairs for the good of men. Prayer opens the way when it is shut up or straitened.

Providence deals more especially with temporalities. It is in this realm that the providence of God shines brightest and is most apparent. It has to do with food and raiment, with business difficulties, with strangely interposing and saving from danger, and with helping in emergencies at very opportune and critical times.

The feeding of the Israelites during the wilderness journey is a striking illustration of the providence of God in taking care of the temporal wants of his people. His dealings with those people show how he provided for them in that long pilgrimage.

Day by day the manna fell,

O to learn this lesson well!

Still by constant mercy fed,

Give me, Lord, my daily bread.

Day by day the promise reads,

Daily strength for daily needs;

Cast foreboding fears away,

Take the manna of today.

Our Lord teaches this same lesson of a providence which clothes and feeds his people in the Sermon on the Mount when he says, “Take no thought what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.” Then he directs attention to the fact that it is God’s providence which feeds the fowls of the air, clothes the lilies of the field, and asks if God does all this for birds and flowers, will he not care for them?

All of this teaching leads up to the need of a childlike, implicit trust in an overruling providence, which looks after the temporal wants of the children of men. And let it be noted specially that all this teaching stands closely connected in the utterances of our Lord with what he says about prayer, thus closely connecting a divine oversight with prayer and its promises.

We have an impressive lesson on divine providence in the case of Elijah when he was sent to the brook Cherith, where God actually employed the ravens to feed his prophet. Here was an interposition so plain that God cannot be ruled out of life’s temporalities. Before God will allow his servant to want bread, he moves the birds of the air to do his bidding and take care of his prophet.

Nor was this all. When the brook ran dry, God sent him to a poor widow, who had just enough meal and oil for the urgent needs of the good woman and her son. Yet she divided with him her last morsel of bread. What was the result? The providence of God interposed, and as long as the drought lasted, the cruse of oil never failed nor did the meal in the barrel give out.

The Old Testament sparkles with illustrations of the provisions of Almighty God for his people, and shows clearly God’s overruling providence. In fact the Old Testament is largely the account of a providence which dealt with a peculiar people, anticipating their every temporal want, which ministered to them in emergencies, and which sanctified to them their troubles.

It is worth while to read that old hymn of Newton’s, which has in it so much of the providence of God:

Though troubles assail, and dangers affright,

Though friends should all fail, and foes all unite,

Yet one thing secures me, whatever betide,

The promise assures us, the Lord will provide.

The birds without barns, or storehouse are fed,

From them let us learn, to trust for our bread;

His saints what is fitting, shall ne’er be denied,

So long as it’s written, the Lord will provide.

In fact, many of our old hymns are filled with sentiments in song about a divine providence, which are worthwhile to be read and sung even in this day.

God is in the most afflictive and sorrowing events of life. All such events are subjects of prayer, and this is so for the reason that everything which comes into the life of the praying one is in the providence of God, and takes place under his superintending hand. Some would rule God out of the sad and hard things of life. They tell us that God has nothing to do with certain events which bring such grief to us. They say that God is not in the death of children, that they die from natural causes, and that it is but the working of natural laws.

Let us ask what are nature’s laws but the laws of God, the laws by which God rules the world? And what is nature anyway? And who made nature?How great is the need to know that God is above nature, is in control of nature, and is in nature! We need to know that nature or natural laws are but the servants of Almighty God who made these laws, and that he is directly in them, and they are but the divine servants to carry out God’s gracious designs, and are made to execute his gracious purposes. The God of providence, the God to whom the Christians pray, and the God who interposes in behalf of the children of men for their good, is above nature, in perfect and absolute control of all that belongs to nature. And no law of nature can crush the life out of even a child without God giving his consent, without such a sad event occurring directly under his all-seeing eye, and without his being immediately present.

David believed this doctrine when he fasted and prayed for the life of his child, for why pray and fast for a baby to be spared, if God has nothing to do with its death should it die?

Moreover, “does God care for oxen,” and have a direct oversight of the sparrows which fall to the ground, and yet have nothing to do with the going out of this world of an immortal child? Still further, the death of a child, no matter if it should come alone as some people claim by the operation of the laws of nature, let it be kept in mind that it is a great affliction to the parents of the child. Where do these parents come in under any such doctrine? It becomes a great sorrow to mother and father. Are they not to recognize the hand of God in the death of the child? And to them is there no providence or divine oversight in the taking away of their child? David recognized the facts clearly that God had to do with keeping his child in life; that prayer might avail in saving his child from death, and that when the child died it was because God had ordered it. Prayer and providence in all this affair worked in harmonious cooperation, and David thoroughly understood it. No child ever dies without the direct permission of Almighty God, and such an event takes place in his providence for wise and beneficent ends. God works it into his plans concerning the child himself and the parents and all concerned. Moreover, it is a subject of prayer whether the child lives or dies.

In each event of life how clear,

Thy ruling hand I see;

Each blessing to my soul most dear,

Because conferred by thee.

Two kinds of providences are seen in God’s dealings with men, direct providences and permissive providences. God orders some things, others he permits. But when he permits an afflictive dispensation to come into the life of I’ his saint, even though it originates in a wicked mind, and it is the act of a sinner, yet before it strikes his saint and touches him, it becomes God’s providence to the saint. In other words, God consents to some things in this world many of them very painful and afflictive, without in the least being responsible for them, or in the least excusing him who originates them, but such events or things always become to the saint of God the providence of God to, him. So the saint can say in each and all of these sad and distressing experiences, “It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good.” Or with the psalmist, he may say, “I was dumb; I opened not my mouth, because thou didst it.”

This was the explanation of all of job’s severe afflictions. They came to him in the providence of God, even though they had their origin in the mind of Satan, who devised them and put them into execution. God gave Satan permission to afflict job, to take away his property, and to rob him of his children. But job did not attribute these things to blind chance, nor to accident, neither did he charge them to satanic agency, but said, “The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” He took these things as coming from his God, whom he feared and served and trusted.

And to the same effect are job’s words to his wife when she left God out of the question, and wickedly told her husband, “Curse God and die.” Job replied, “Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What! Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?”

It is no surprise under such a view of God’s dealings with job that it should be recorded of this man of faith, “In all this did not job sin with his lips,” and in another place was it said, “In all this job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.” In nothing concerning God and the events of life do men talk more foolishly and even wickedly than in ignorantly making up their judgments on the providences of God in this world. 0 that we had men after the type of job, who though afflictions and privations are severe in the extreme, yet they see the hand of God in providence and openly recognize God in it.

The sequel to all these painful experiences are but illustrations of that familiar text of Paul, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.” Job received back more in the end than was ever taken away from him. He emerged from under these tremendous troubles with victory, and became till this day the exponent and example of great patience and strong faith in God’s providences. “Ye have heard of the patience of job,” rings down the line of divine revelation. God took hold of the evil acts of Satan, and worked them into his plans and brglIght great good out of them. He made evil work out for good without in the least endorsing the evil or conniving at it.

We have the same gracious truth of divine providence evidenced in the story of Joseph and his brethren, who sold him wickedly into Egypt and forsook him and deceived their old father. All this had its origin in their evil minds. And yet when it reached God’s plans and purposes, it became God’s providence both to Joseph and to the future of Jacob’s descendants. Hear Joseph as he spoke to his brethren after he had revealed himself to them down in Egypt, as he traced all the painful events back to the mind of God and made them have to do with fulfilling God’s purposes concerning Jacob and his posterity:

Now therefore be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither; for God did send me before you to preserve life. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity on the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So that it was not you that sent me hither, but God.

Cowper’s well-known hymn might well be read in this connection, one verse of which is sufficient just now:

God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform;

He plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm.

The very same line of argument appears in the betrayal of our Lord by Judas. Of course it was the wicked act of an evil man, but it never touched our Lord till the Father gave his consent, and God took the evil design of Judas and worked it into his own plans for the redemption of the world. It did not excuse Judas in the least that good came out of his wicked act, but it does magnify the wisdom and greatness of God in so overruling it that man’s redemption was secured. It is so always in God’s dealings with man. Things which come to us from second causes are no surprise to God, nor are they beyond his control. His hand can take hold of them in answer to prayer and he can make afflictions, from whatever quarter they may come, “work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”

The providence of God goes before his saints, opens the way, removes difficulties, solves problems and brings deliverances when escape seems hopeless. God brought Israel out of Egypt by the hand of Moses, his chosen leader of that people. They came to the Red Sea. But there were the waters in front, with no crossing nor bridges. On one side were high mountains, and behind came the hosts of Pharaoh. Every avenue of escape was closed. There seemed no hope. Despair almost reigned. But there was one way open which men overlooked, and that was the upward way. A man of prayer, Moses, the man of faith in God, was on the ground. This man of prayer, who recognized God in providence, with commanding force, spoke to the people on this wise:

Fear ye not; stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.

With this he lifted up his rod, and according to divine command, he stretched his hand over the sea. The waters divided, and the command issued forth, “Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward.” And Israel went over the sea dry shod. God had opened a way, and what seemed an impossible emergency was remarkably turned into a wonderful deliverance. Nor is this the only time that God has interposed in behalf of his people when their way was shut up.

The whole history of the Jews is the story of God’s providence. The Old Testament cannot be accepted as true without receiving the doctrine of a divine, overruling providence. The Bible is preeminently a divine revelation. It reveals things. It discovers, uncovers, brings to light things concerning God, his character, and his manner of governing this world, and its inhabitants, not discoverable by human reason, by science or by philosophy. The Bible is a book in which God reveals himself to men. And this is particularly true when we consider God’s care of his creatures and his oversight of the world, his superintendent of its affairs. And to dispute the doctrine of providence is to discredit the entire revelation of God’s Word. Everywhere this Word discovers God’s hand in man’s affairs.

The Old Testament especially, but also the New Testament, is the story of prayer and providence. It is the tale of God’s dealings with men of prayer, men of faith in his direct interference in earth’s affairs, and with God’s manner of superintending the world in the interest of his people and in carrying forward his work in his plans and purposes in creation and redemption.

Praying men and God’s providence go together. This was thoroughly understood by the praying ones of the Scripture. They prayed over everything because God had to do with everything. They took all things to God in prayer because they believed in a divine providence which had to do with all things. They believed in an everpresent God, who had not retired into the secret recesses of space, leaving his saints and his creatures to the mercy of a tyrant, called nature, and its laws, blind, unyielding, with no regard for anyone who stood in its way. If that be the correct conception of God, why pray to him? He is too far away to hear them when they pray, and too unconcerned to trouble himself about those on earth.

These men of prayer had an implicit faith in a God of special providence,who would gladly, promptly, and readily respond to their cries for help in times of need and in seasons of distress.

The so-called “laws of nature” did not trouble them in the least. God was above nature, in control of nature’ while nature was but the servant of Almighty God. Nature’s laws were but his own laws, since nature was but the offspring of the divine hand. Laws of nature might be suspended and no evil would result. Every intelligent person is conversant every day when he sees man overruling and overcoming the law of gravitation, and no one is surprised or raises his hand or voice in horror at the thought of nature’s laws being violated. God is a God of law and order, and all his laws in nature, in providence and in grace work together in perfect accord, with no clash or disharmony.

God suspends or overcomes the laws of disease and rain often without or independent of prayer. But quite often he does this in answer to prayer. Prayer for rain or for dry weather is not outside the moral government of God, nor is it asking God to violate any law which he has made, but only asking him to give rain in his own way, according to his own laws. So also the prayer for the rebuking of disease is not a request at war with law either natural or otherwise, but is a prayer in accordance with law, even the law of prayer, a law set in operation by Almighty God as the so-called natural law which governs rain or which controls disease.

The believer in the law of prayer has strong ground on which to base his plea. And the believer in a divine providence, the companion of prayer, stands equally on strong granite foundations, from which he need not be shaken. These twin doctrines stand fast and will abide forever.

In every condition, in sickness, in health,

In poverty’s vale or abounding in wealth;

At home or abroad, on the land or the sea,

As thy days may demand shall thy strength ever be.