03.50. The Greatest Force On Earth
The Greatest Force on Earth
It is not every kind of praying that works such wonders. It takes a man of prayer to pray as Elijah and George Muller prayed. It is the energized prayer of the righteous man that is of great force. The widow knew that Elijah was a man of God when he prayed her boy back to life (1 Kings 17:24). It is always the crowning proof and the ultimate test. Nothing would turn the nation back to God so surely and so quickly as a church that prayed and prevailed. The world will never believe in a religion in which there is no supernatural power. A rationalized faith, a socialized church, and a moralized gospel may gain applause, but they awaken no conviction and win no converts.
There is passion in the praying that prevails. Elijah was a man of passions all compact. There was passion in all he did. All there was of him went into everything he did. God loves a man aflame. The lukewarm he cannot abide. He never keeps hot hearts waiting. "When ye shall search for me with all your heart, ... I will be found of you" (Jeremiah 29:13-14). When he prayed, he prayed in his prayer. Is there not much praying in which there is no prayer? The praying man was in his petition. Listen to his praying in the death chamber. Watch him on Carmel. Hear him plead the honor of God and cry unto the Lord for the affliction of the people. It is always the same: Abraham pleading for Sodom, Jacob wrestling in the stillness of the night, Moses standing in the breach, Hannah intoxicated with sorrow, David heartbroken with remorse and grief -- Jesus in a sweat of blood. Add to the list from the records of the church, personal observation and experience, and always there is the cost of passion unto blood. It prevails. It turns ordinary mortals into men of power. It brings power. It brings fire. It brings rain. It brings life. It brings God. There is no power like that of prevailing prayer.
Recent correspondence has brought me many stories of answered prayer. I can quite understand why critical minds have misgivings as to their evidential value. The man who has not travailed through the supplication is always free to look for other explanations, but to the man who has prayed the explanation adds to the wonder of the answer. He had the answer before the answer came. Take one example. A man told me of a great anxiety in his business life. Like Jehoshaphat, he had no resources to meet the need, and he knew not what to do, but he continued earnestly in prayer and supplication to God until one day there came a great peace into his soul and he knew that he was heard. The conditions were unchanged, but he had an assurance of peace, and in a most unexpected way, and by a comparatively unknown person, deliverance came. The explanation was obvious, but the answer was no less sure.
It always seems to me quite useless to argue about prayer; a challenge like that of Huxley is utterly futile. The proof that God answers prayer is in praying. I once answered a street-corner challenge to prove that God answers prayer by challenging the man to come and kneel down and pray, but the challenge was not accepted. I still hold that to be the only way, and that way is scientific and conclusive.
Another story that I may repeat comes from the Rev. T. A. Turney. He was a scholar in the school where the schoolmaster was both master and uncle. He was one of the old sort, who taught by making his scholars find out things for themselves. He was harder with his nephew than with the rest, lest he should be suspected of favoritism. The lad came to the deadlock that awaits us all at some stage of learning. There was a problem in mathematics he could not do. Day after day he brought it to the master, to be sent back to try again. When this had gone on for more than a week, the lad went one night to a mission service and gave his heart to God. At the communion rail he began to pray. When he got home he turned again to his problem, with the same old result. When he knelt down to pray he asked God to help him with this problem. In the night, asleep or awake he does not know, he saw the proposition worked out. He got up and wrote it down. Next morning he took it to the master, who answered sharply, "Right! Who showed you?" "God," answered the boy.