Prayer a Providential Force in God’s Plan

It is according to the promise of God, and therefore it is in accordance with the “laws of nature,” that great wonders can be wrought through prayer. God has so planned his work of creation that right prayer is as potent a force in the universe as the mightiest of mere natural forces.

There can be no conflict where God has ordained harmony. All agencies which God has put in operation work together for good to them that love him. His kingdoms of nature and of grace are not at variance. The progress of the one kingdom is no hindrance to the progress of the other; on the contrary, each is by God set to help forward the other to its best and completest work. Unless the prayer of faith comes in for its provided mission, all Prayer

the forces of nature fail of their most beneficent accomplishment, just as surely as the electric current waits aimlessly for the magnetic battery and the telegraphic wire to enable it to bear a message of affection or warning from one Christian believer’s home to another.

The confusion in many a man’s mind over this matter of prayer arises from ignoring the fact that God so arranged all the workings of nature, so planned and fixed its “laws,” that the needs and the longings of all his children in all the ages should be met by the influence of prayer in nature’s operations. Concerning the miracle of the overthrow of Pharaoh’s host, the speculative rabbis concluded that when the Lord originally formed the Red Sea he so contrived it that its waters should separate when the rod of his servant Moses was first stretched above them, and that they should fall back again when that rod was over them a second time. Theirs certainly was a great deal better A Providential Force

logic, and theirs a more sensible conclusion, than is the notion of some modern theorists, that the “laws of nature” are so constraining and inexorable that they bind Omnipotence; that they render God unable to do as he would like to, and unwilling to do as he has promised. Electricity and gravitation are recognized as forces controlled by the “laws of nature.” Yet man has unmistakable power to will and plan and execute a change in the operation and application of these forces by means of simple mechanical agencies, so that gravitation is practically overcome and suspended, or resumed and intensified, for a special purpose within given limits of time and space; and electricity is drawn out of its normal course in the heavens and made to travel a wire stretched from one point to another to enable two persons at a distance from each other to converse on matters of merely personal interest. This is admitted by those who deem it unreasonable to suppose 15

forces of nature at the need and call. oo

those whom God loves. They seem, indeed, — e unwilling to concede to God the power over —

the forces of nature that is exercised in a thousand cases by the humblest tender of

a pile-driver or the poorest trained tele- —

phone girl.

God’s promise is explicit and often repeated that the faith-filled prayer of the disciples of Jesus shall be answered. If that promise is not to be depended on, God cannot be trusted. If God can be believed, that promise is sure. To the child of God, his Father and his Father’s

promises are inseparable. They must be

accepted or rejected together. When God says that we may have a thing 7 we pray for it in faith, God’s promise of giving that thing is conditioned on our faith-filled prayers for it. We know, therefore, just how that thing is to be obtained. If we

fail to meet the conditions of its bestowal, 16.

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A Providenttal Forte

we must make up our minds to do without its benefits. sie. When there is no asking for that which is to come by the asking, there is no receiving of that thing. The “laws of nature” are no hindrance to God’s giving of whatever his children need and in faith pray for. But his children’s failure to pray for a blessing which he has conditioned on their prayer, does hinder his giving to them. God can be depended on, — depended on to keep his promise of an answer to the faith-filled prayer of his children, even though ten thousand miracles were needed to that answer, — depended on, also, to withhold those good gifts which he has promised to bestow on his children only in answer to their prayer of faith. There are rich gifts awaiting the rightful prayers of the disciples of Jesus, — gifts that are to be had for the asking, and not to be had unless they are asked for. “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and 17

ake ad grace for ourselves a others. God stands waiting to answer such

prayers on our part. Let us fail of no bless- ae

ing at his hands that is conditioned on our request for it. As sure as is our confidence in his existence may be our confidence in his fidelity to his promises. “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.”