01.D 05. Praying in Faith
V PRAYING IN FAITH
“Whatsoever things ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye have received them and ye shall have them.”— Mark 11:24.
We are now prepared to say a word about the remaining condition of prevailing prayer. It is Faith. It may be God’s pleasure to give; it may be His will to give; and yet, not until we believe He is going to give will His pleasure or His will bring to us the thing we have desired of Him. Some people make a mistake here. They think that whatever God wills for us must, of course, come to pass. But this is by no means true. For example, “This is God’s will, even your sanctification,” but has this come to pass fully in your life? Alas, that so many of us should fall so far short of what God in His goodness wills for us.
Though His will be revealed, only so much will be fulfilled as our faith accepts. God may, in His Word, or in His providence, or by His Spirit, reveal His will for us, but the responsibility for realizing that will in our own experience rests with our own will. This answers, at least partially, the old question, “Does not prayer influence God?” It does influence His action, even though it be granted, for the present, that it does not influence His will or purpose which are embodied in the love plan He has thought out for every one of His children. God proposes to give, but what He would have given is withheld, and if you would know why, you have only to ask Him to hear Him say, as He once did to some other crushed and defeated disciples, “because of your unbelief.” Speaking about one of our needs, which every one must, at times, more or less feel, James says that the one conscious of his need shall “Ask of God who giveth liberally... and it shall be given him,” but He says.
“Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering, for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed with the wind; for let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.” Were it possible that every other condition of prayer could be fulfilled and faith be lacking, the petition would be only words, vain and unavailing, which, for reasons not hard to discover, are painful enough to the great heart of the Father, and which it would have been better never to have been uttered.
Faith is the hand that takes, and all God’s best thought for you and me is actualized in our experience only through a confidence in God which counts a thing done before it really takes place. With what nicety the Revised Version opens up the deeper meaning of Mark 11:24, so long lost to the English reader. It has usually been read, “Whatsoever things ye desire, when you pray, believe that ye receive them and you shall have them,” but the “ye receive” of the older translation is now correctly made to read, “ye have received.” It is the business of faith to believe that the answer has already been given by God in Heaven before it is received or felt on earth. Rather searching, isn’t it? And presumptuous, did you say? No, child, not that, but blessed is the man who so believes in God and understands the might of God, that he accepts by faith the yet unseen and unreceived, and thanks the Giver for what he knows “he shall receive.”
Faith is the key to the Father’s storehouse. Rather annoying, isn’t it, to twist and turn with a key that will not work? But the lock is perfect, the bearings all in order, and if Faith is of the right quality and then well tempered, the door will not be hard to open. So necessary was it and is it for men to see this that it stands out with chiefest prominence in all the teachings of Jesus. Had Jesus done the writing Himself I think he would have underscored the word with a double line of deepest black. Did He run the press, it might be with raised letters He would burn this truth into our minds. “All things are possible to him that believeth” (Mark 9:23), He said to the father of the afflicted child when the disciples through lack of faith could do nothing. *’A11 things,” He said. Puts it rather strongly, doesn’t He? These little hearts of ours can scarcely take it in, but that is what He said. He wants us to see how really omnipotent Faith is, and that the disciples who stood rebuked in the presence of their humiliating failure might be assured that He was not speaking with unmeasured words. He took as an illustration the unlikeliest thing that might occur — a mountain slipping away and tumbling off into the sea. If you are looking for a good personification of faith, you must not stop at Hercules. Faith is almightiness. “If you have faith, nothing shall be impossible to you.”
“Faith does not doubting ask, *Can this be so?’ The Lord hath said it and there needs no more.” Is it hard to see why faith is so essential?
Surely, it cannot be. Prayer without faith is self-contradictory. What sort of an insult is it to a man to approach him for a favor and at the same time tell him you have no faith whatsoever that he will give you what you ask.^ And why mock God in a way like that and at the same time stultify ourselves and treat with such utter contempt the power we might have with Him who “supplieth all our need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus?”
Now, when Jesus says, “Whatsoever things ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them and ye have received them,” it is clear that we are to believe hat we shall receive the very thing we ask. But, of course, faith that a thing shall be given implies faith in the person from whom we expect it. You cannot believe in a man’s promise until you first believe in the man himself. And for this reason Jesus, just before He made that wonderful prayer promise, first said, *’Have faith in God.” “He that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” We must believe in God as a living, mighty, loving God. We must have faith in His power — that He can do whatsoever He wills to do. We must have faith in His love — that it is His delight to bless; that He would like to give us all we ask, and that He is willing to give us whatsoever is best for us to have.
Yet the Faith we are thinking about now goes beyond even this. We are not only to believe that God can but that He will and that He will give us the ’particular thing we ask.
Andrew Murray (“With Christ in the School of Prayer,” page 81) calls attention to a distinction between what he calls the “Prayer of Faith” and the “Prayer of Trust. “The “prayer of Prayer of Trust, he says, has reference to things of which we cannot find out if God is going to give them. As children we make known our desires in the countless things of daily life, and leave it to the Father to give or not, as He thinks best; but “The Prayer of Faith,” he says, “of which Jesus speaks is something different, something higher, having taken its stand on some promise of God it knows that it will receive exactly what it asks.’
Now we are prepared to see the force of the statement made at the beginning.
Though you know the will of God, you cannot without faith pray with any assurance that it will be done for you. So far all is clear, but now we have come to a place where every one is not quite of the same opinion.
Know the will of God; believe when you pray and the answer is sure. No difficulty about that. But here is a question that is as practical as it is fascinating. Suppose you have not been able to discover the will of God about a certain thing; is it possible to pray with any faith that this particular thing will be granted? It is no use to answer, as some have done, by saying, “If you are the right kind of a Christian and are praying in the Spirit you will know what is the will of God concerning any matter.”
Such an answer is not satisfactory for two reasons,
1. When there is no absolutely clear and definite promise in the Word upon which to rest one’s faith, we saw a few pages further back that one might be so strongly inclined to believe that he knew God’s will from what he thought was the leadings of God’s Spirit and of providence as to be fully satisfied in his own mind about it and yet discover in the end that all the while he had been mistaken. This is true not only of those whose peculiar religious notions, derived, as they claim, from divine revelation, lay them open to the criticism and sometimes pity of sober-minded people, but just as true oftentimes of the most sane and devoted Christian. Here is a man well known to the writer, a man of the highest spiritual attainment. His child, a lad of six, is near death’s door. Through the Spirit, he told me, he was so powerfully impressed that it was God’s will the child should live that he rested his faith on this assurance and prayed and his child recovered. For years he used this, and honestly, as an illustration that it was our privilege to be absolutely sure of God’s will through the voice of His Spirit and so pray with faith. A few years later and the child was again at the point of death. Again he received the assurance of his recovery in the same way, and again he prayed with faith that his child would live, but the child did not live.
2. It is often true when the thing is not definitely promised in the Word, that the most spiritually-minded and truly-devoted Christian cannot satisfy himself as to what is the will of God about it, and it is hardly kind or necessary to find fault with his life and Christian attainment because this is so. Andrew Murray, speaking of the prayer of trust, says it has reference to “things of which we cannot find out whether God is going to give them,” and, after all, I wonder if it is not true that where there is no specific promise in the Word to cover the thing desired — I wonder, even though the leadings of providence seem to be plain and the voice of the Spirit distinct, if we must not leave a little room at least for an equation of uncertainty. I think so. And a rule that will not work down among the finer distinctions cannot consistently be used in solving the problem in general.
Now, what about the two conditions of mind just mentioned? In the first case, the man was convinced that it was God’s plan for him that he should have the thing he desired. He was mistaken, but his conviction was genuine, and so, of course, there was just as much room for faith as if he had rightly interpreted the will of God. Was his faith genuine? Certainly, only it was resting on a false hope. (The faith of a heathen in his idol is just as genuine per se as the faith of a Christian in his God.) When, in the end, the Christian finds his petition denied, he will then know that he was asking for something which could not consistently, with the all wise and loving plan of God, be granted, and he will not only have learned a little more of how patient and careful one should be in the endeavor to discover the will of God, but he will bow with reverent loving submission to what he knows was for his Father’s glory and his own good. (Romans 8:28.) In the second case, when the Christian cannot satisfy himself as to what is the will of God, what is to he done? Here is where so many of us find ourselves in spite of our effort to meet every requirement which comes from God. Here is where most Christians need help. The question is, can a Christian under such circumstances have any faith that he will receive the thing for which he prays? The tendency is to answer, No. One of our leading religious instructors said, “You cannot have uncertainty and certainty at the same time.” Another said, “No; faith is not a thing to be pumped up; you cannot just say, ’I am going to believe,’ and then believe. Unless you have an absolute promise, a clear revelation of God’s will concerning the matter, you can have no faith regarding it whatsoever.”
We will not conceal the fact that we have wanted to say. Yes, to the above question — wanted to, because of the help we have felt such an answer would be to the average Christian. For, if we can only pray with faith for what we are certain is God’s will, how few of us can really ever so pray, and how very few are the things for which even such Christians so pray. Sift the matter carefully down and see if this is not true.
I am going to answer. Yes, to the question, not for the reason mentioned, however, which would be no reason at all, but because I am convinced that I can otherwise reasonably do so.
I am quite willing to admit that without an absolutely clear and definite revelation of God’s will, there cannot be an absolutely clear and unquestioning faith in the matter of prayer, and this admission, I presume, makes us all at one in the question at hand. But one may have a conviction, and a strong one, without an absolutely clear and definite revelation, and he may believe in proportion to the strength or depth of that conviction. He knows how kind and good the Father is; he has studied carefully and waited on his knees and sees no reason why this thing should not be granted; he knows he is unselfish in what he asks, and thinks surely it will glorify his God; and as he waits, willing to lay aside his petition the very moment it becomes certain by an absolutely clear and definite revelation that it is not God’s will; as he thus waits, there is borne in upon him from time to time a conviction — an impression; it never weakens; it increases and deepens the rather, and satisfies him that what he is asking God is going to give. Who will say that this influence upon his soul, this impression that has become a conviction with him, is not the working of the Holy Spirit Himself drawing the man out into this very prayer which subsequent events prove to have been in harmony with the will and plan of God for him?
Now, of this will the man had at no time an absolutely unquestioning certainty of knowledge. Such a clear revelation had not been given him and yet it was his privilege and duty to believe, to have faith in proportion at least to the depth of the conviction that came to him. (Study carefully Matthew 9:2; Matthew 9:22; Matthew 9:28; Matthew 15:28 and Mark 10:50, and see if it was not just this faith that was exercised there.) Now, here is a question: Did that faith do him any good? Did it have any value in God’s sight in securing the desire of his heart? Unhesitatingly we answer, Yes. And just as unhesitatingly we say that without such faith God might never have done for him what He did do because such faith was exercised. (See page 199.) Under such circumstances as the above
I would then,
1. Put an added petition in my prayer, asking God to give me increased light as to His will in the matter, and give myself to seek that light through meditation, the study of the Word, the observation of providence and waiting on the Spirit of God.
2. If God does not show me that the request is not according to His will, keep on praying for it with faith as just explained until He does, and should He make it plainly known that the thing is NOT His will, then cease praying, humbly submit to His will, and thank Him for the denial; for God’s No in such a case is better than His Yes. Do not, however, cease praying unless the knowledge that the request is not according to His will be just as clear and certain as must be the knowledge in the case of a man who knows that he is praying according to the will of God.
3. Always close such a petition by saying from the heart, *’If it be not Thy will. Thy will, O God, and not mine, be done.” And is it necessary to stop a bit just now that we may be reminded once more of the Holy Spirit and His relation to the faith we have been talking about all the while? If no man can call Jesus “Lord” save through the Spirit, and if the faith that first puts us in the right condition to pray by making us children of the heavenly Father is the gift of God through His Spirit, how plain it is that He must stand back of every taking hold of God for anything. Faith must have some ground upon which to rest. The Holy Spirit supplies it. It is the Holy Spirit who first reveals to us our need. It is the Holy Spirit who reveals to us our God in His love and in His power. It is the Holy Spirit who reveals to us the promises of God. It is the Holy Spirit who draws us out in prayer for such things as are pleasing to God, and the it is the Holy Spirit, the source of all spiritual capacity, who quickens the faith faculty and helps the soul to believe.
How true it is, after all, that without the Holy Spirit abiding in us we can do nothing; and just as true it is that without Him abiding in fullness our prayer life and our whole life will be weak and utterly fail. Say, then, child of the Almighty One, “O Holy Spirit, be Thou my all in all.”