The Possibilities of Prayer
by E M Bounds (1835-1913)
10. ANSWERED PRAYER
"In his 'Soldier's Pocket Book,' Lord Wolseley says
if a young officer wishes to get on, he must volunteer for the most hazardous duties and take every possible chance
of risking his life. It was a spirit and courage like that which was shown in the service of God by a good soldier
of Jesus Christ named John McKenzie who died a few years ago. One evening when he was a lad and eager for work
in the Foreign Mission field he knelt down at the foot of a tree in the Ladies' Walk on the banks of the Lossie
at Elgin and offered up this prayer: 'O Lord send me to the darkest spot on earth.' And God heard him and sent
him to South Africa where he laboured many years first under the London Missionary Society and then under the British
Government as the first Resident Commissioner among the natives of Bechuanaland."
-- J. O. Struthers
IT is answered prayer which brings praying out of the realm
of dry, dead things, and makes praying a thing of life and power. It is the answer to prayer which brings things
to pass, changes the natural trend of things, and orders all things according to the will of God. It is the answer
to prayer which takes praying out of the regions of fanaticism, and saves it from being Eutopian, or from being
merely fanciful. It is the answer to prayer which makes praying a power for God and for man, and makes praying
real and divine. Unanswered prayers are training schools for unbelief, an imposition and a nuisance, an impertinence
to God and to man.
Answers to prayer are the only surety that we have prayed aright. What marvellous power there is in prayer! What
untold miracles it works in this world! What untold benefits to men does it secure to those who pray! Why is it
that the average prayer by the million goes a begging for an answer?
The millions of unanswered prayers are not to be solved by the mystery of God's will. We are not the sport of His
sovereign power. He is not playing at "make-believe" in His marvellous promises to answer prayer. The
whole explanation is found in our wrong praying. "We ask and receive not because we ask amiss." If all
unanswered prayers were dumped into the ocean, they would come very near filling it. Child of God, can you pray?
Are your prayers answered? If not, why not? Answered prayer is the proof of your real praying.
The efficacy of prayer from a Bible standpoint lies solely in the answer to prayer. The benefit of prayer has been
well and popularly maximized by the saying, "It moves the arm which moves the universe." To get unquestioned
answers to prayer is not only important as to the satisfying of our desires, but is the evidence of our abiding
in Christ. It becomes more important still. The mere act of praying is no test of our relation to God. The act
of praying may be a real dead performance. It may be the routine of habit. But to pray and receive clear answers,
not once or twice, but daily, this is the sure test, and is the gracious point of our vital connection with Jesus
Christ. Read our Lord's words in this connection:
To God and to man, the answer to prayer is the all-important
part of our praying. The answer to prayer, direct and unmistakable, is the evidence of God's being. It proves that
God lives, that there is a God, an intelligent being, who is interested in His creatures, and who listens to them
when they approach Him in prayer. There is no proof so clear and demonstrative that God exists than prayer and
its answer. This was Elijah's plea: "Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the
Lord God."
The answer to prayer is the part of prayer which glorifies God. Unanswered prayers are dumb oracles which leave
the praying ones in darkness, doubt and bewilderment, and which carry no conviction to the unbeliever. It is not
the act or the attitude of praying which gives efficacy to prayer. It is not abject prostration of the body before
God, the vehement or quiet utterance to God, the exquisite beauty and poetry of the diction of our prayers, which
do the deed. It is not the marvellous array of argument and eloquence in praying which makes prayer effectual.
Not one or all of these are the things which glorify God. It is the answer which brings glory to His Name.
Elijah might have prayed on Carmel's heights till this good day with all the fire and energy of his soul, and if
no answer had been given, no glory would have come to God. Peter might have shut himself up with Dorcas' dead body
till he himself died on his knees, and if no answer had come, no glory to God nor good to man would have followed,
but only doubt, blight and dismay. Answer to prayer is the convincing proof of our right relations to God. Jesus
said at the grave of Lazarus:
The answer of His prayer was the proof of His mission from
God, as the answer to Elijah's prayer was made to the woman whose son he raised to life. She said, "Now by
this I know that thou art a man of God." He is highest in the favour of God who has the readiest access and
the greatest number of answers to prayer from Almighty God.
Prayer ascends to God by an invariable law, even by more than law, by the will, the promise and the presence of
a personal God. The answer comes back to earth by all the promise, the truth, the power and the love of God.
Not to be concerned about the answer to prayer is not to pray. What a world of waste there is in praying. What
myriads of prayers have been offered for which no answer is returned, no answer longed for, and no answer is expected!
We have been nurturing a false faith and hiding the shame of our loss and inability to pray, by the false, comforting
plea that God does not answer directly or objectively, but indirectly and subjectively. We have persuaded ourselves
that by some kind of hocus pocus of which we are wholly unconscious in its process and its results, we have been
made better. Conscious that God has not answered us directly, we have solaced ourselves with the delusive unction
that God has in some impalpable way, and with unknown results, given us something better. Or we have comforted
and nurtured our spiritual sloth by saying that it is not God's will to give it to us. Faith teaches God's praying
ones that it is God's will to answer prayer. God answers all prayers and every prayer of His true children who
truly pray.
The emphasis in the Scriptures is always given to the answer
to prayer. All things from God are given in answer to prayer. God Himself, His presence, His gifts and His grace,
one and all, are secured by prayer. The medium by which God communicates with men is prayer. The most real thing
in prayer, its very essential end, is the answer it secures. The mere repetition of words in prayer, the counting
of beads, the multiplying mere words of prayer, as works of supererogation, as if there was virtue in the number
of prayers to avail, is a vain delusion, an empty thing, a useless service. Prayer looks directly to securing an
answer. This is its design. It has no other end in view.
Communion with God of course is in prayer. There is sweet fellowship there with our God through His Holy Spirit.
Enjoyment of God there is in praying, sweet, rich and strong. The graces of the Spirit in the inner soul are nurtured
by prayer, kept alive and promoted in their growth by this spiritual exercise. But not one nor all of these benefits
of prayer have in them the essential end of prayer. The divinely appointed channel through which all good and all
grace flows to our souls and bodies is prayer.
Prayer is divinely ordained as the means by which all temporal
and spiritual good are gained to us. Prayer is not an end in itself. It is not something done to be rested in,
something we have done, about which we are to congratulate ourselves. It is a means to an end. It is something
we do which brings us something in return, without which the praying is valueless. Prayer always aims at securing
an answer.
We are rich and strong, good and holy, beneficent and benignant, by answered prayer. It is not the mere performance,
the attitude, nor the words of prayer, which bring benefit to us, but it is the answer sent direct from heaven.
Conscious, real answers to prayer bring real good to us. This is not praying merely for self, or simply for selfish
ends. The selfish character cannot exist when the prayer conditions are fulfilled.
It is by these answered prayers that human nature is enriched. The answered prayer brings us into constant and
conscious communion with God, awakens and enlarges gratitude, and excites the melody and lofty inspiration of praise.
Answered prayer is the mark of God in our praying. It is the exchange with heaven, and it establishes and realizes
a relationship with the unseen. We give our prayers in exchange for the Divine blessing. God accepts our prayers
through the atoning blood and gives Himself, His presence and His grace in return.
All holy affections are affected by answered prayers. By the answers to prayer all holy principles are matured,
and faith, love and hope have their enrichment by answered prayer. The answer is found in all true praying. The
answer is in prayer strongly as an aim, a desire expressed, and its expectation and realization give importunity
and realization to prayer. It is the fact of the answer which makes the prayer, and which enters into its very
being. To seek no answer to prayer takes the desire, the aim, and the heart out of prayer. It makes praying a dead,
stockish thing, fit only for dumb idols. It is the answer which brings praying into Bible regions, and makes it
a desire realized, a pursuit, an interest, that clothes it with flesh and blood, and makes it a prayer, throbbing
with all the true life of prayer, affluent with all the paternal relations of giving and receiving, of asking and
answering.
God holds all good in His own hands. That good comes to us through our Lord Jesus Christ because of His all atoning
merits, by asking it in His name. The only and the sole command in which all the others of its class belong, is
"Ask, seek, knock." And the one and sole promise is its counterpart, its necessary equivalent and results:
"It shall be given -- ye shall find -- it shall be opened unto you."
God is so much involved in prayer and its hearing and answering, that all of His attributes and His whole being
are centered in that great fact. It distinguishes Him as peculiarly beneficent, wonderfully good, and powerfully
attractive in His nature. "O thou that hearest prayer! To thee shall all flesh come."
Not only does the Word of God stand surety for the answer to prayer, but all the attributes of God conspire to the same end. God's veracity is at stake in the engagements to answer prayer. His wisdom, His truthfulness and His goodness are involved. God's infinite and inflexible rectitude is pledged to the great end of answering the prayers of those who call upon Him in time of need. Justice and mercy blend into oneness to secure the answer to prayer. It is significant that the very justice of God comes into play and stands hard by God's faithfulness in the strong promise God makes of the pardon of sins and of cleansing from sin's pollutions:
God's kingly relation to man, with all of its authority,
unites with the fatherly relation and with all of its tenderness to secure the answer to prayer.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is most fully committed to the answer of prayer. "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name,
that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son." How well assured the answer to prayer is, when
that answer is to glorify God the Father! And how eager Jesus Christ is to glorify His Father in heaven! So eager
is He to answer prayer which always and everywhere brings glory to the Father, that no prayer offered in His name
is denied or overlooked by Him. Says our Lord Jesus Christ again, giving fresh assurance to our faith, "If
ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it." So says He once more, "Ask what ye will, and it shall
be done unto you."
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