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The Practical Results of Prevailing Prayer

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 11, 1909

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 86, No. 45.

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The Practical Results of Prevailing Prayer

By R. D. Quinn

R. D. QUINN
PRAYER is power. The men of prayer are the men of power. It has been so in all ages; it ever will be so. “The Lord is with you, while ye be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you.” In every great crisis in the development of God’s work in the earth, the altars that were broken down have been built up, and men by their faith and prayers have unlocked heaven’s storehouse, stayed the tide of evil, and brought deliverance to God’s people.
Enoch, a preacher of righteousness, walked and talked with God in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation until God took him home. “To him prayer was as the breath of the soul.” Moses prayed his way into the very presence of God. “And the Lord spoke unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.” Samuel is mentioned in the book of the Psalms as chief among those that call upon God’s name, and as having been answered. Ps. 99:6. His mighty intercessions tided Israel through those stormy times between the judges and the kings. For Samuel to have lived a prayerless life, would have meant certain defeat for Israel. He said, “As for me, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you.”
“Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.” Notice that Elijah was a man of like passions with us. He was weak where we are weak; tempted where we are tempted; and he failed where we often fail when for a moment we lose sight of our Almighty Helper.
God is no respecter of persons, and with Moses we may well ask ourselves the question, “Who am I?” It is not so much a matter of who we are as who our God is. Jesus Christ prayed his way through every great crisis of his life, and for us who are in his stead he is still praying: “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.” He prayed for Peter that his faith fail not, and that he might be converted. He knows us also by name, and is praying for us. “Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which can not be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”
All heaven is interested in us. Jesus Christ ever liveth to make intercession for us, and the Holy Ghost, the third person of the Godhead, is making intercession for us with groanings which can not be uttered, according to the will of God. All this is done that our faith fail not, and that we be converted, or reconverted, and saved to the uttermost. Knowing all this, how can we, poor, weak, and powerless creatures of the dust, consent to live a prayerless life? God forbid that we should sin in ceasing to pray.
If Enoch, Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Ezra, Nehemiah, David, Daniel, and every other man of God who has done a definite work of righteousness in the earth, needed to pray, and did pray, how much more should we pray to whom has been given the greatest mission God has ever entrusted to men? In view of the mighty issues before us, there is one thing that every saint can do, and that is to pray.
Two classes are being rapidly developed in these closing days of earth’s history,—those who are careless, prayerless, and indifferent, and those who are “weeping and praying with agony of spirit.” O sleeper! “arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us that we perish not.”
Bozeman, Mont.