What Definite and Desirable Results Witl Definite and Determined Prayer Produce?.: ‘ a Dos

“The supplication of a righteous man cvatleth much in its working.’ — JAMES 5:16 R. V.

Desirable Results Will Definite and Determined

Prayer Produce?” You will find the text on which all we have to say is based in Jas. 5:16: “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” These words of God set forth prayer as a working force, as a something that brings things to pass that would not come to pass if it were not for prayer. This comes out even more clearly in the Revised Version. “The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working.” While this translation means practically the same thing as the Authorized, it is not only a more accurate translation but it is also a more suggestive one. It tells us that prayer is something that works, and that it availeth much because of its “working.”’ Yes, prayer certainly does work. A contrast is often drawn by many between praying and working. I knew a man once who was an officer in a Sunday School in Brooklyn, and the Superintendent one day called on him to pray. He arose and said, “I am not a praying Christian, 1 am a working Christian.” But praying is working. It is the most effective 30

Mo subject this morning is, “What Definite and work that anyone can do, that is, we can often bring more to pass by praying than we can by any other form of effort we might put forth, Furthermore, prayer, if it be real prayer, the kind of prayer that avails much with God, oftentimes is harder work than any other kind of effort; it takes more out of one than any other kind of effort. When Mr. Alexander and I went to Liverpool for our second series of meetings there, Rev. Musgrave Brown, Vicar of one of the leading Church of England parishes in the city, was chairman of our committee. His health gave out the very first week of the meetings and he was ordered to Switzerland by his medical man. Soon after reaching Switzerland he wrote me saying, “I hoped to be of so much help in these meetings and anticipated so much from them, but here I am, way off here in Switzerland, ordered here by my medical man, and now all I can do is to pray.” Then he added, “But after all that is the greatest thing anyone can do, is it not?’”’ Then he still further added, “And real prayer takes more out of one than anything else, does it not?” Yes, it often does. Real praying is a costly exercise but it pays far more than it costs. It is not easy work but it is the most profitable of all work. We can accomplish more by time and strength put into prayer than we can by putting the same amount of time and strength into anything else. You will notice that in the Revised Version the word “supplication” is substituted for the word “prayer.” The reason for that is this: there are a number of Greek words which are translated “prayer” in the Authorized Version and they have different shades of meaning, sometimes very significant shades of meaning, and the Greek word which the Authorized Version translates “prayer” in this passage is a very significant word: i sets forth prayer as the definite expression of a deeply felt need. Indeed, the primary meaning of the word is “need.” Therefore, our text teaches that, Definite and Determined Prayer to God “availeth much.”

The Greek word translated “availeth” is also a very expressive and significant word. Its primary meaning is “to be strong,” “to have power [or force],” and then “to exercise power,” so the thought of our text is, that definite and determined prayer exerts much power in tis working, that it achieves great things. Then in the verses that immediately follow we are told of the astounding things Elijah brought to pass by his prayers, how he shut up heaven for three years and six months so that there was not a drop of rain for that long period; and the Old Testament account tells us that not only was there not a drop of rain, but furthermore, not a drop of dew (I Kings 17:2). And then when the proper time had come Elijah “prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.” Or, as Mr. Moody used to put it in his graphic way, “Elijah locked up heaven for three years and six months and put the key in his pocket.” Now there is no particular need that you or I know of why we should shut up heaven for three years and six months, or, for that matter, for three days; but there is a most imperative need that we bring some other things to pass and there is no other way in which we can bring them to pass than by praying for them, by definite and determined prayer. So we are brought face to face with the tremendously important question: What are Some of the Definite Things that are Greatly to be Desired at the Present Time that Prayer will Bring to Pass?

We saw in our previous chapter two immeasurably

é important things that prayer will accomplish. First, that it will promote our own personal piety, our individual holiness, our individual growth into the likeness of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Second, that it will bring the power of God into our work. This morning we shall discover from a study of the Bible some other exceedingly important things that the right sort of praying will bring to pass. I. Prayer WILL Save OTHERS

Turn to the first Epistle of John, chapter five, verse sixteen: “If any man see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and God will give him life for them that sin not unto death.”

This is one of the most remarkable statements in the whole Bible on the subject of prayer and its amazing power. The statement of this verse is not only most remarkable, it is also most cheering and most gladdening. God here tells us that prayer will not only bring blessing to the one who prays, but that it will bring the greatest of all blessings, even the blessing of eternal life, to others, to those for whom we pray. It tells us that if we see another sinning a sin not unto death, that is, committing sin, any sin except the one unpardonable sin, we can go to God in prayer for that one and that in answer to our prayer God will give life, eternal life, to this one for whom we have prayed. This passage, of course, is often taken to teach divine healing, and interpreted as if the thought were that the “life” here spoken of was mere natural or physical life, and that by our prayer we could get physical life for one who was sick because of his sinning but who had not sinned the sin which must eventuate in his being removed from this

od world. But this is not only an incorrect but an impossible interpretation. The Apostle John in his writings uses two different Greek words for “life.” One of them signifies physical life, the other signifies spiritual or eternal life; it is never used of natural life, merely physical life. I have looked up every passage where John uses this latter word in his Gospel, in his Epistles and in the Book of ‘Revelation, and not in one single instance does he use the word used in this verse of anything but spiritual or eternal life. This is the word John uses in this passage, and the thought of this passage then is, not that one may obtain physical life, deliverance from natural death, by praying for one who has sinned, but that he can obtain eternal life, salvation in its fullest sense, for the one who has sinned but has not sinned unto death. It is a wonderful thought and a thought full of comfort and encouragement.

We can accomplish more for the salvation of others by praying for them than we can in any other way. I do not mean by this that when we feel our responsibility for the salvation of someone else we should merely pray for them and do nothing else. That is what many do, they are not willing to do their duty and go to them and speak to them about Christ, and so they go to God in prayer and when they have prayed for their salvation they flatter themselves that they have done their whole duty, and thus make their prayer an excuse for their cowardice and laziness and neglect of duty. That kind of praying is a mockery, it is simply an attempt to cover up and excuse our neglect of duty; and God will pay no attention whatever to prayers of that sort. God never gave us the wonderful privilege of prayer as a makeshift to cover up our laziness and neglect of duty. But, if we are willing that God should use us in answering our own prayers, willing to do anything that God may guide us to do to secure the salvation of those for whom we are praying, willing to do anything in our power to bring about the salvation of those for whom we pray, then we can accomplish far more for their salvation by praying for them than in any other way.

Did you ever think how our Lord Jesus Himself accomplished things by praying that even He could not accomplish in any other way? Take for example the case of Simon Peter. He was full of self-confidence and therefore was in imminent danger. Our Lord endeavoured by His teachings and by His warnings to deliver Peter from his self-confidence. He told Peter definitely of his coming temptation and of his fall, but Peter, filled with self-confidence, replied: “If all shall be offended in Thee, I will never be offended.” (Matt. 26:33.) And again, wlewi lavidown my life for Thee.) (tohn wl 1379) Teaching failed, warning failed, and then our Lord took to prayer. He said, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat: but I made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not; and do thou when once thou hast turned again, establish thy brethren.” (Luke 22:31, 32.) Satan got what he asked — he got Simon into his sieve and sifted him; and, oh, how poor Simon was battered and bruised against the edges of Satan’s sieve! But all the time Satan sifted, our Lord Jesus prayed, and Simon was perfectly safe even though he was in Satan’s sieve; and all Satan succeeded in doing with him was to sift some of the chaff out of him, and Simon came out of Satan’s sieve purer wheat than he ever was before.

It was our Lord’s prayer for him that transformed the

Simon who denied his Lord three times, and denied Him with oaths and curses, in the court yard of Annas and Caiaphas, into Peter, the man of rock, who faced the very court that sentenced Jesus to death and hurled defiance in their teeth and said, “Ye rulers of the people and elders, if we this day are examined concerning a good deed done to an impotent man, by what means this man is made whole; be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even in him doth this man stand here before you whole.” (Acts 4: 8-10.)

Prayer will reach down, down, down into the deepest depths of sin and ruin and take hold of men and women who seem lost beyond all possibility or hope of redemption, and lift them up, up, up until they are fit for a place beside the Son of God upon the throne.

Many years ago in Chicago, in the early days of Mr. Moody’s work in that city, there was a very desperate man who used to attend the meetings and try to disturb them. He was a Scotchman and had been reared in a Christian home by a godly mother, but he had wandered far from the teachings of his childhood. He was a man dreaded even by other dissolute men in Chicago. One night he stood outside the old Tabernacle with a pitcher of beer in his hand offering a free drink to everybody that came out of the Tabernacle. At other times he would come into the meetings and into the after-meetings, and try and disturb the workers. One night Major Whittle was dealing with two young men and this desperate Scotchman stood near mocking until Major Whittle turned to the young men and said, “If you set any value upon your souls, I advise you not to have anything to do with that desperate man”; and he only laughed. But his old mother over in Scotland was praying; and one night he went to bed just as wicked and godless as ever, and in answer to his mother’s prayer,God awakened him in the middle of the night and brought to his mind a text of Scripture that he had forgotten was in the Bible, Romans 4:5, “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness.” That verse of Scripture went home to his heart and he accepted Christ without getting out of bed. He became one of the most active and most useful members of the Moody Church. When I was pastor of the church he was one of the elders, and afterwards became visitor for the church, and he was used of God to lead many to Christ.

Sometime after his own conversion he went to Scotland to visit his old mother. He had a brother in Glasgow in business and this brother was trying to be an agnostic. But the godly mother and converted son prayed for this brother and he was converted and gave himself up to God’s work, went to the Free Church College to prepare for foreign missionary work and for thirty years was a medical missionary in India under the Free Church of Scotland Missionary Board. But there was still another brother, a wanderer on the face of the earth. They did not know where he was, though they supposed he was somewhere on the high seas, but the godly mother and converted brother knelt and prayed for this wandering son and brother. As they prayed that son, unknown to them, was on the deck of a vessel on the other side of the globe, in the Bay of Bengal, not far from Calcutta; and the Spirit of God fell upon that son on the deck of that vessel and he was converted. He was for many years a member of the Moody Church when I was pastor there, and when I went out to Los Angeles he followed me and became a member of our church in Los Angeles, and then died a triumphant death. Prayer had reached half-way round the world and saved instantly a man who seemed utterly beyond hope.

When I was in England holding meetings in the city of Manchester, one of the leading business men came to me and asked me to pray for the conversion of his son. He said, “My son is a graduate of Cambridge University and a bright barrister. He has a wife and two children but he has left his wife and children and we do not know where he is. Will you pray for his conversion?”’ JI promised him that I would. Some months afterward this man came to me at the Keswick Convention and said, “I have got track of my boy. He is in Vancouver, British Columbia. Do you know any minister in Vancouver to whom I could cable?” I told him the name of a friend who was a minister of the Gospel in Vancouver and he cabled him. The next day he came to me and said, ‘‘ We were too late, the bird has flown, he has left Vancouver. Will you continue to pray for him?” I said I would. At the close of the same year, when we began our second series of meetings in Liverpool, unknown to his father, this son had returned to England and was in Liverpool. He came to our very first Sunday afternoon meeting and was one of the first ones to accept Christ, and immediately began to study for holy orders under the Bishop of Liverpool.

Let me tell you one more instance of the power of prayer to save, where everything else fails. Very soon after my own conversion God laid a certain man whom I greatly loved upon my heart, and I began to pray every DEFINITE AND DESIRABLE RESULTS 39

day for his conversion. After having prayed for him for some time I thought to myself, “I will spend a whole night in prayer for his conversion.” I spent the whole night on my knees, though I must confess that “while the spirit was willing the flesh was weak” and part of the night I fell asleep on my knees. The next morning I thought, “You spent the whole night in prayer, now write him.” I was in New Haven and he was in New York, and I wrote him urging him to accept Christ. Almost by return of mail I got a letter from him making fun of me for what I was doing. Then the Devil tempted me to give up, he said, “Here you spent the whole night in prayer for him and this is the only result. What is the use of praying?” But for once at least the Devil did not succeed in deceiving me or discouraging me, and I kept on praying for him. I prayed for him every day for fifteen years. In the meantime he had moved to Chicago and so had I. I called upon him at the old Sherman House where he was living, but he was more profane than usual — just to hurt my feelings. I ceased speaking to him but kept on praying.

The very first winter that I was in Chicago, as I was praying for him one morning, God said to me, “You need not pray any longer, I have heard your prayer, he will be converted.” I never asked God again for his conversion; but every morning I looked up to God and I said to Him, “Heavenly Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard my prayer and now I am waiting to see it.” About two weeks passed by. This man had been confined to his bed by rheumatism and I had called on him at his home. Now he was up and came over to our home to dinner. After dinner I invited him to stay all night. He replied, “Well, I think I will. I am just up from rheumatism, it is damp out tonight, I am afraid to go out. Yes, I will stay all night.’ When he wakened the next morning his rheumatism was back to that extent that his feet were so swollen that he was unable to get his shoes on, and he was shut up in. my house for two weeks. My day of opportunity had come. I did not speak directly to him about accepting Christ, but the children running in and out of his room seemed to speak more about the Lord Jesus than usual, although they always loved to talk about Him. My friends coming into our home and seeing him there in the ‘house of the minister took it for granted that he was a Christian and seemed to talk more than usual about Jesus Christ. After two weeks he was able to get his shoes on and after breakfast started down La Salle Avenue with me when I went to my office, he intending to go to his own home.

We had walked about half a block when he turned to me suddenly and said, “Archie, I am thinking of going into temperance work. How do you begin?” I replied, “The only way that I know to begin temperance work is by first of all becoming a Christian yourself.” ‘“‘Why,” he replied, “I always supposed I was a Christian.” I said, “You have the strangest way of showing it of any person I ever knew in my life.” He said, “How do you become a Christian?” I said, “Come over to my office and I will tell you.” He went over to my office and as Mr. Moody was away I took him up to Mr. Moody’s office, and we sat down and I explained to him the way of life. He was nearly eight years older than I, and yet I explained to him the way of life just as I would have explained it to a child, and like a child he listened and acted, and knelt down then and there and like a little child accepted Jesus Christ. He was preaching within a year — he preached up almost to the end. He was supplying a Presbyterian pulpit forty miles from Chicago. I had been down East visiting old friends of his and mine. 1 came back to Chicago and heard that he was poorly and I took the train and went out to see him. I found that he had not preached the day before, though he had preached the Sunday before that. I began to talk to him about old friends of his and mine in New York State. “Oh,” he said, “never mind that, let’s have a time of prayer.” I spent the whole day with him. I was going South the next day to a Convention of students from Southern universities and I slept that night in the Institute in order to take an early train. Very early in the morning, before I was up, there came a rap at my door. I went to the door and one of my students stood there with a telegram in his hand. I opened it and it read, “Your brother passed away at two o’clock this morning.’ Again I hurried out to the place where he had been supplying the pulpit, and as I went into that quiet room and turned back the white sheet from the face of my oldest brother as he lay there silent in death, I thanked God that for fifteen long years I had believed in a God who answered prayer.

Oh, men and women, have you loved ones who are unsaved? There is a way to reach them: that way is by the throne of God. By the way of the throne of God you can reach out to the uttermost parts of the earth and get hold of your loved ones of whom you have lost all track. God knows where they are and God hears and answers prayer. At the close of a meeting in a certain city a lady came to me and said, “I have a brother above sixty years of age. I have been praying for his salvation for years but I have given up. I will begin again.”

Within two weeks she came to me and said, “I have heard from my brother and he has accepted Christ.”

Yes, yes, yes, “the supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working,’ and if we would only pray more and be more sure that we had met the conditions of prevailing prayer, we would see multitudes more of men and women flocking to Jesus Christ. Oh, that we might pray as we ought, as intelligently as we ought, as definitely as we ought, as earnestly and determinedly as we ought, for the salvation of the men, women and children whom we know are unsaved.

II. PrAveER Witt BrinGc BLESSING AND POWER TO
MINISTERS OF THE WorpD

Now turn to Eph. 6:17-20 R. V.: “And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God: with all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints, and on my behalf, that utterance may be given unto me in opening my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” Here Paul urgently requests the earnest prayers of the believers in Ephesus for himself, that in answer to their prayers he may preach the Gospel with boldness and with power. Paul made a similar request of every church to which he wrote with one striking exception; that one exception was the Church in Galatia. That church was a backsliding church and he did not care to have a backsliding church praying for him. In every other case he urged the Church to pray for him. Here we see the power of prayer to bring blessing and boldness and efficiency to ministers of the Gospel, A minister can be made a man of power by prayer, and he can be unmade and bereft of power by people failing to pray for him. Any church can have a mighty man of God for tts pastor, tf it 1s willing to pay the price, and that price 1s not a big salary but great praying.

Have you a pastor that you do not like, a pastor that is inefficient it may be, or perhaps a pastor who does not clearly know nor preach the truth? Do you want a new minister? I can tell you how to get him. Pray for the one you have till God makes him over.

Many years ago in one of the Cornish parishes of the Church of England, the Vicar was not even a converted man. He had but little interest in the real things of God, his interest was largely in restoring old churches and in matters of ritual. There were a great many godly people in that parish and they began to pray to God to convert their minister, and then they would go to church every Sunday and watch for the answer to their prayers. One Lord’s Day when he rose to speak he had not uttered many sentences before the people of spiritual discernment realized that their prayers had been answered and a cry arose all over the church, “The parson’s converted, the parson’s converted;”’ and it was true. He was not only converted but he was endued with power from on high; and for many years God used that man all over England for the conversion of sinners, for the blessing of all saints, and for the quickening of churches, as almost no other man in the Church of England.

There was a church in the City of Hartford, Connecttcut, that had a very brilliant man for its pastor, but he was not sound in doctrine. There were three godly men in that church who realized that their pastor was not preaching the truth. But they did not go around among the congregation stirring up dissatisfaction with the pastor. They covenanted together to meet every Saturday night to pray long into the night for their minister. So Saturday night after Saturday night they met in earnest and protracted prayer, then Sunday morning they would go to church and sit in their places and watch for an answer to their prayers. One Sunday morning when the minister rose to speak he was just as brilliant and just as gifted as ever, but it soon became evident that God had transformed his ideas and transformed the man, and Dr. Theo. Cuyler is authority for the statement that God sent to the City of Hartford the greatest revival that city ever had, through that minister who was transformed by the prayers of his members. Oh, if we would talk less to one another against our ministers, and more to God in their behalf, we would have far better ministers than we have now.

Have you a minister that you do like? Do you wish him to be even better, do you wish him to be far more effective than he is today? Pray for him till God gives him new wisdom and clothes him with new power.

Have you ever heard how Dwight L. Moody became a world-wide evangelist? After the great fire in Chicago, Mr. Moody stayed in Chicago long enough to get money together to feed the poor and to provide a new building for his own work, and then he went to England for a rest. He did not intend to preach at all, but to hear some of the great preachers on the other side of the water, Spurgeon, Geo. Muller, and others. He was invited to preach one Sunday in a Congregational church in the North of London, of which a Mr. Lessey was the pastor. He accepted the invitation. Sunday morning as he preached he had great difficulty. As he told the story to me many years afterward, he said, “I had no power, no liberty; it seemed like pulling a heavy train up a steep grade, and as I preached I said to myself, ‘ What a fool I was to consent to preach. I came here to hear others, and here I am preaching.’ As I drew to the close of my sermon I had a sense of relief that I was so near through, and then the thought came to me, ‘ Well, I’ve got to do it again tonight.’ I tried to get Mr. Lessey to release me from preaching that night, but he would not consent. I went to ‘the evening service with a heavy heart. But I had not been preaching long when it seemed as if the powers of an unseen world had fallen upon that audience. As I drew to the close of my sermon I got courage to draw the net. I asked all that would then and there accept Christ to rise, and about five hundred people arose to their feet. I thought there must be some mistake; sa I asked them to sit down, and then I said, ‘ There will be an after-meeting in the vestry, and if any of you wil! really accept Christ meet the pastor and me in the vestry.’

“There was a door at each side of the pulpit into the vestry and people began to stream through these doors nuito the vestry, and I turned to Mr. Lessey and said, ‘Mr. Lessey, who are these people?’ He replied, ‘I do not know.’ ‘Are they your people?’ ‘Some of them are. ‘Are they Christians?’ ‘Not as far as I know.’ We went into the vestry and I repeated the invitation in a stronger form, and they all rose again. I still thought that there must be some mistake and asked them to be seated, and repeated the invitation in a still stronger form, and again they all arose. I still thought there must be some mistake and I said to the people, ‘I am going to Ireland tomorrow, but your pastor will be here tomorrow night and if you really mean what you have said here tonight meet him here.’ After I reached Ireland I received a telegram from Mr. Lessey saying, ‘Mr. Moody, there were more people out on Monday night than on Sunday night. A revival has broken out in our church and you must come back and help me.’” Mr. Moody hurried back from Dublin to London and held a series of meetings in Mr, Lessey’s church that added hundreds of people to the churches of North London, and that was what led to the invitation that took him over to England later for the great work that stirred the whole world. After Mr. Moody had told me that story I said, “Mr. Moody, somebody must have been praying.” “Oh,” he said, “did I not tell you that? That is the point of the whole story. There were two sisters in that church, one of whom was bedridden; the other one heard me that Sunday morning. She went home and said to her sister, ‘Who do you suppose preached for us this morning?’ The sister replied, ‘I do not know.’ Then she said, “Guess, and the sister guessed all the men that Mr. Lessey was in the habit of exchanging with, but her sister said ‘No.’ Then her sister asked, ‘ Who did preach for us this morning?’ And she replied, ‘Mr. Moody of Chicago.” No sooner had she said it than her sister turned pale as death and said, ‘What! Mr. Moody of Chicago! I have read of him in an American paper and I have been praying God to send him to London, and to send him to our church. If I had known he was to preach this morning I would have eaten no breakfast, I would have spent the whole morning in fasting and prayer. Now, sister, go out, lock the door, do not let any one come to see me, do not let them send me any dinner; I am going to spend the whole afternoon and evening in fasting and prayer.’” And pray she did, and God heard and answered. God is just as ready to hear and answer you as He was to answer that bedridden saint. To whatever church you belong, and whoever your pastor is, you can make him a man of power. If he is a man of power already, you can make him a man of even greater power.

Will you bear with me while I give you a leaf out of my own experience? When I went to Chicago it was not to take the pastorate of a church but to be Superintendent of the Bible Institute, and of the Chicago Evangelization Society. After I had been there four years the pulpit of the Moody Church became vacant and Mr. Moody and I asked them to call a very gifted preacher from Aberdeen, Scotland; which they did. While we waited to hear from him as to whether he would accept the call, I filled the pulpit; and God so blessed the preaching of His Word that quite a number of the people were praying that the minister from Scotland would not accept the call, and he did not. Then they called me to the pastorate. I could not see how I could take it; my hands were full with the Institute, the lectures, the correspondence and other duties. But Mr. Moody urged me to accept the call; he said, “That is what I have been wanting all the time. If you will only accept the call, I will give you all the help that you ask for, and provide men to help you in the Institute”; and I accepted the call.

The first sermon that I preached after taking the pastorate of the church was upon prayer, and in it I said some of the things that I have said here. As I drew toward the close of my sermon I said, “How glad your new pastor would be if he knew that some of you men and women of God sat up late Saturday night, or rose early Sunday morning, to pray for your new pastor;” and many of those dear saints of God took me at my word. Many of them sat up late Saturday night praying for their minister, and many of then rose early Sunday morning to pray for their minister; and God answered prayer. The church building when I took the pastorate would seat twenty-two hundred people, twelve hundred on the floor and one thousand in the gallery; but in the preceding years only the floor of the church was filled, and the gallery only opened on special occasions, when Mr. Moody was there or something of that kind. Almost immediately it became necessary to open the gallery; and then in the evening service every inch of standing room would be taken, until we packed twenty-seven hundred people into that building by actual count, and the police authorities required us to no longer allow people to sit on the stairs or stand in the aisles. Then we had an overflow meeting in the rooms below, which would seat eleven hundred, and oftentimes into the Institute Lecture Hall also.

But that was not the best of it. There were conversions every Sunday; indeed, there were conversions in and about the church practically every day in the week. The great majority of those who were converted did not unite with the Moody Church, they were strangers passing through the city, or people that came from other churches. It got to be quite the custom for some ministers to send their people over to our church to have them converted, then they would go back and join the churches to which they properly belonged. So only a comparatively small proportion of those converted united with our church, and yet the smallest number that we ever received into the Church in any one of the eight years that I remained there as active pastor was two hundred fifty, and in those eight years I had the joy of giving the right hand of fellowship to over two thousand new members.

And it went on just the same way the four years that I was only nominally pastor and not at the church at all, under the different men that came there and whom the people prayed into power. It went on the same way under Dr. Dixon’s pastorate. It was not so much the men who were preaching as the people behind them who were praying that accomplished such great things for God. And then when I started around the world those people still followed me with their prayers; and it was reported when I came back, by one who claimed to know, that there were over one hundred and two thousand persons who made a definite profession of accepting Christ in the different places I visited in those months that I was away. When I came back after my first eighteen months’ absence, Dr. Dixon met me one day, and he said to me (this was before he became pastor of the church), “Torrey, when we heard the things that were done in Australia and elsewhere we were all surprised. We didn’t think it was in you.” He was perfectly right about that, it wasn’t in me. Then he added, “But when I went out and supplied your church for a month and heard your people pray for you, I understood it.” Oh,” any church can have a minister who is a man of power, a minister who is baptized and filled with the Holy Ghost, if they are willing to pay the price, and the price is prayer, much prayer, much real prayer, prayer in the Holy Ghost.