Life On The Highest Plane
The Prerequisites for Prevailing Prayer
Scripture gives us some very wonderful instances of this intensity of desire in prayer. The children of Israel had fallen into gross idolatry while Moses was upon the mount with God. Their sin weighed heavily upon his heart. He alone stood as mediator between them and the righteous judgment of God. Witness the sacrificial vicariousness of his intercessory prayer.
Exodus 32:31-32, "And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, Oh! this people have sinned a great sin, and have made themselves gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin - and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written."
The same intensity of desire is in the prayer of the Apostle Paul for his kinsmen according to the flesh. His heart's desire was their salvation and he wanted it so much that he could even wish himself outside the fold of Christ if they could be within.
Romans 10:1, "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved."
Romans 9:2-3, "That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh."
Such intense desire did David Brainerd have for the salvation of the ignorant, savage Indian tribes to whom he carried the Gospel. He said, "I wrestled for the ingathering of souls, for multitudes of poor souls, personally, in many places. I was in such an agony from sun half an hour high until dark that I was wet all over with sweat." Dr. Joweth rightly said, "True intercession is a sacrifice, a bleeding sacrifice, a perpetuation of Calvary, a filling up of the suffering of Christ. Unquestionably if our intercession blesses it must bleed." How much do we really care for the salvation of the unsaved members of our family? for the unsaved friends in our social circle? for the unsaved millions in the mission fields? How intensely do we desire to see a genuine revival in the Church? Is our desire keen enough to call us to sacrificial, mediatorial intercession and to keep us continuing in it until the answer comes?
A fifth prerequisite in prevailing prayer is the daring of faith. God makes staggering promises to the man of prayer. He says "Whatsoever we ask, we receive of him" (1 John 3:22). "If ye shall ask anything, in my name, I will do it" (John 14:14). "Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you" (John 15:7).
As we face such stupendous statements as these we are compelled to ask, "Does God really mean what He says? If He does, is He really able to fulfill such promises? If He is, what does it require of us?"
God really means that if you and I fulfill the condition He so clearly states in connection with the promises which He has made that He will fulfill the promise. The God of truth cannot lie.
God is most assuredly able to fulfill every promise which He has made. Listen to the testimony of those who had put God's faithfulness to the test and had proved both His faithfulness and His power. "God is faithful" (1 Corinthians 10:13) and "God is able" (2 Corinthians 9:8).
Josh. 23:14, "And, behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth: and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof."
1 Kings 8:56, "Blessed be the Lord, that hath given rest unto his people Israel, according to all that he promised: there hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by the hand of Moses his servant."
Then what do such promises require of us? They require the daring of faith. God calls us to take every promise at its face value. He asks us not to drag His promises down to the plane of our unbelief but to lift our faith up to the plane of His promises.
Romans 4:20-21, "He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform."
God challenges us to put Him to the test. He dares us to command the Himalayas, that rears up between Himself and us or between Himself and the one for whom we pray, to be removed and to be cast into the sea and He makes the daring of faith the only condition for the achievement of such a miracle.
Mark 11:23, "Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass; he shall have it."
Will you enter today, my friend, into a new prayer partnership with your Lord? The power is His: the faith is yours. Through the daring of faith will you link yourself with the omnipotence of power and bring down from Heaven above not only into your own life but into the life of the whole body of Christ "exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think."
Ephesians 3:20, "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us."
We have considered the prerequisites for prevailing prayer on the man-ward side. We have been at the foot of the ladder, which connects earth with Heaven, looking up. May we now go to the top of the ladder and look down. From the viewpoint of the throne of grace what are the conditions of prevailing prayer? Scripture reveals three qualifying phrases accompanying God's gracious promises.
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 25)
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