Some Methods of Answering Prayer

In spite of our practical tendency to incredulity we ought not to allow ourselves to believe that any fervent, importunate prayer wMcli lias for its object the glory of God, and wliicli is offered in the name of the Mediator, remains forever unanswered. The answer may be long delayed. It may not come in the way that was looked for. The person who prayed may not recognize the return of his own petition. But that the “fervent effectual prayer of the righteous man” is ever wholly unavailing we should be loath to admit.

Some prayers we cannot expect to see answered at once. Those who plead “day by day” for the spiritual regeneration of the world must not suppose that ere they go hence, they themselves are to see all the heathen nations given to our ascended Master for His inheritance. Yet their prayers are not forgotten. Those pleading saints will yet behold the glorious fulfilment of their desires from the battlements of heaven. How many prayers do we see manifestly answered even long after the saint who breathed them into the ear of Jesus has gone to lay his weary head on that Saviour’s breast. A dying mother commits her beloved boy to a covenant-keeping God. She has often borne that child on the arms of faith to the mercy-seat. He has been the ohild of many prayers; and in the feeble utterances of her passing spirit another, and a last petition is breathed forth that Christ would have mercy on his soul. Years roll away. The sod has grown green, and the rank grass has long waved over that mother’s tomb. In some distant land, mayhap many hundred miles from that spot, a full-grown man who has long been ripening in sin is seen bowed in prayer. He is crying out of the depths of an agonized spirit, Ood he merciful to me a sinner! Behold he prayeth, and his prayer is the answer of that fervent petition which his dying mother uttered many long years before. Her prayer was recorded in God’s book of remembrance; and but for that, we know not that the prayer of that son would have ever ascended there.

The Scriptures famish a kindred instance in the case of Stephen, who prayed during the agonies of dpath for his vindictive persecutors. And when Stephen was in Paradise, the very Saul who was an accomplice in his destruction, becomes a trophy of redeeming grace. The early church prayed for things which did not come about for centuries; and at this very hour men of faith are besieging the mercy-seat for blessings that will, without question, dawn upon their descendants. Let praying fathers and mothers who are growing faint of heart, give heed to this. Let desponding churches give heed to it before they abandon their places of social prayer, where their hearts have often “burned within them.” Far above the dark cloud of their discouragement is written as in the clear upper sky, “He that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.’^

II. Other prayers are answered at the time of their utterance, but in a way so Tinlooked for, that he who offered them is inclined to think that the very opposite of what he asked for has befallen him. One individual prays that he may be enabled to glorify God. Ere he is aware, some heavy calamity comes crashing down upon him, prostrating him to the dust. His fortune takes wings. His schemes of promotion are blasted. A favorite child is taken. His hopes are “withered like grass.” God has answered his prayer, but has answered it, as the Psalmist says, “by terrible things.” From under the overwhelming pressure of affliction he flees to Jesus his comforter, and oh! how his love is kindled by the contact! How he glorifies God in the furnace which is purging away le dross of selfishness and worldliness, and making his pure gold to sMne with, tenfold brightness!

I once saw an earnest inquirer who was praying most importunately for faith in Christ, and for peace to his. troubled soul. But while he prayed, a cloud of blackness gathered across his horizon! And against that cloud, which swung like a funeral-pall before his vision, played the sharp lightnings of Almighty wrath. The thunders of God’s law roared against him. Instead of peace came only the sword. Instead of the calm which he sought, came the fearful tempest; and under the stress of its dark terrors the |)oor baffled soul betakes himself to the “covert” which Christ has raised on Calvary. There he finds the peace he so earnestly prayed for. There the long-sought confidence in Jesus pours its fulness through the soul. His prayer was answered — first by “terrible tilings,” but at last by the very blessings which he desired. And without that storm, the true calm would have never come. Had the sinner not have been led to that frightful view of his own guilt, and his liability to condemnation, he might never have gone to Christ, and thus could not have known true peace. As he looks back over the dark valley of sorrow through which the divine hand has wondrously led him, and sees that no other way would have brought him to the cross, he feels a renewed assurance that God is the hearer of prayer — that he that asketh will yet receive, and he that seeketh will always find.

III. But we may also observe how the petitions of believers are often answered according to their intention and not according to the strict letter of the request.

The utterer of the prayer sought only the glory of God, but in his ignorance asked for wrong things. His prayer was not rejected, however. It was heard. It was answered. But the blessing granted has been something very different from what the believer expected. There has been in this case what an old writer calls ‘’ a transmutation of the thing desired into some other great blessing of the same kind; for Grod often thus improves, and lays out the precious stock of believers’ prayers to the best advantage, that the greatest returns may accrue to them.” Jacob, when he blesses the sons of Joseph, lays his right hand on the son who stood at his left side. “So God takes off His hand of blessing from the thing we prayed for, and lays it on another which is more for our good, or His own glory.”

The case of Paul is a beautiful illustration of this. He is sorely afflicted by a “thorn in his flesh.” What the nature of the affliction was, we know not. Perhaps a severe malady. Perhaps the continued enticement of some lust. Perhaps a besetting sin. Perhaps some chronic distortion of his bodily frame, brought on by excitement and suffering, which exposed him to derision, and to which he may have alluded when he speaks of an “infirmity in the flesh” which the Galatians “did not despise.” He beseeches the Lord in three earnest petitions that this “thorn” might depart from him. His prayers are heard; they are answered. But instead of the removal of the thorn, comes the cheering assurance, “My grace is suflflcient for thee.” God does not take away the trial, but gives him all that is needed to make it endurable; and thus the Divine glory and Paul’s spiritual well-being were more certainly advanced than if the prayer had been answered according to its letter.

We have only glanced at this fruitful subject, yet we have seen how essential Faith is from first to last. There must be active faith to quicken the soul to prayer. When the believer has come to the mercy-seat, the utterances of his lips must be the outpourings of faith. He must believe that God is, and that He is the rewarder of all who diligently seek Him. After the request has been presented, there must be an importunate faith to urge it, and an expecting faith to go up and look for the blessing. If it comes not at once, faith is needful to assure the soul that an answer is kept back in wisdom and in mercy. And if the answer comes, but comes in a shape entirely unlooked-for, it is often the hardest trial of faith to believe that this is the answer and just what our Master’s honor and our good require.

But that God is the Hearer of Prayer who shall dare to doubt? The skeptic here must seal his vision, “lest he come to the light” and be persuaded. He must mutilate most sadly the narrative of Grod’s providential dealings. He must erase from his Bible the animating record of Jacob’s midnight struggles, the thrilling scenes of Elijah’s wrestlings on Carmel and at Zarephath, the “evening oblations” of Daniel, and the angelic deliverance of Peter from the prison-cell. He must even give the lie to that Ineffable Witness who descended Himself from the upper sanctuary, and had there beheld the gi’acious reception of his children’s prayers, and who has said to all trembling, sorrowing, doubting saints,

“Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye

shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.”