Every promise of Scripture is a writing of God, which may be pleaded before Him with this reasonable request: "Do as Thou hast said." The Creator will not cheat His creature who depends upon His truth; and, far more, the Heavenly Father will not break His word to His own child. "Remember the word unto Thy servant, on which Thou hast caused me to hope," is most prevalent pleading. It is a double argument: It is Thy Word, wilt Thou not keep it? Why hast Thou spoken of it if Thou wilt not make it good? Thou hast caused me to hope in it; wilt Thou disappoint the hope which Thou hast Thyself begotten in me? -- C. H. SPURGEON
THE great promises find their fulfillment along the lines of prayer.
They inspire prayer, and through prayer the promises flow out to their full
realization and bear their ripest fruit.
The magnificent and sanctifying promise in Ezekiel, thirty-sixth chapter, a
promise finding its full, ripe, and richest fruit in the New Testament, is an
illustration of how the promise waits on prayer:
"Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all
your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you.
"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you;
and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a
heart of flesh.
"And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes,
and ye shall keep my judgments and do them.
"And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall
be my people, and I will be your God."
And concerning this promise, and this work, God definitely says:
"I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for
them."
The more truly men have prayed for these rich things, the more fully have
they entered into this exceeding great and precious promise, for in its initial,
and final results as well as in all of its processes, realized, it is entirely
dependent on prayer.
"Give me a new, a perfect heart,
From doubt, and fear, and sorrow free;
The mind which was in Christ impart,
And let my spirit cleave to thee.
"O take this heart of stone away!
Thy sway it doth not, cannot own;
In me no longer let it stay;
O take away this heart of stone!"
No new heart ever throbbed with its pulsations of Divine life in one whose
lips have never sought in prayer with contrite spirit, that precious boon of a
perfect heart of love and cleanness. God never has put His Spirit into the realm
of a human heart which had never invoked by ardent praying the coming and
indwelling of the Holy Spirit. A prayerless spirit has no affinity for a clean
heart. Prayer and a pure heart go hand in hand. Purity of heart follows praying,
while prayer is the natural, spontaneous outflowing of a heart made clean by the
blood of Jesus Christ.
In this connection let it be noted that God's promises are always personal
and specific. They are not general, indefinite, vague. They do not have to do
with multitudes and classes of people in a mass, but are directed to
individuals. They deal with persons. Each believer can claim the promise as his
own. God deals with each one personally. So that every saint can put the
promises to the test. "Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord." No need of
generalizing, nor of being lost in vagueness. The praying saint has the right to
put his hand upon the promise and claim it as his own, one made especially to
him, and one intended to embrace all his needs, present and future.
"Though troubles assail,
And dangers affright,
Though friends should all fail,
And foes all unite,
Yet one thing secures us,
Whatever betide,
The promise assures us,
The Lord will provide."
Jeremiah once said, speaking of the captivity of Israel and of its ending,
speaking for Almighty God: "After seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, I
will visit you, and will perform my good word toward you, in causing you to
return to this place."
But this strong and definite promise of God was accompanied by these words,
coupling the promise with prayer: "Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go
and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me and find me,
when ye shall search for me with all your heart." This seems to indicate very
clearly that the promise was dependent for its fulfillment on prayer.
In Daniel we have this record, "I, Daniel, understood by books the number
of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, the prophet, that he
would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. And I set my
face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplications with fastings and
sackcloth and ashes."
So Daniel, as the time of the captivity was expiring, set himself in mighty
prayer in order that the promise should be fulfilled and the captivity be
brought to an end. It was God's promise by Jeremiah and Daniel's praying which
broke the chains of Babylonish captivity, set Israel free and brought God's
ancient people back to their native land. The promise and prayer went together
to carry out God's purpose and to execute His plans.
God had promised through His prophets that the coming Messiah should have a
forerunner. How many homes and wombs in Israel had longed for the coming to them
of this great honour! Perchance Zacharias and Elizabeth were the only ones who
were trying to realize by prayer this great dignity and blessing. At least we do
know that the angel said to Zacharias, as he announced to him the coming of this
great personage, "Thy prayer is heard." It was then that the word of the Lord as
spoken by the prophets and the prayer of the old priest and his wife brought
John the Baptist into the withered womb, and into the childless home of
Zacharias and Elizabeth.
The promise given to Paul, engraven on his apostolic commission, as related
by him after his arrest in Jerusalem, when he was making his defense before King
Agrippa, was on this wise: "Delivering thee from the people and from the
Gentiles, unto whom I now send thee.'' How did Paul make this promise efficient?
How did he make the promise real? Here is the answer. In trouble by men, Jew and
Gentile, pressed by them sorely, he writes to his brethren at Rome, with a
pressing request for prayer:
"Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the
love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for
me;
"That I may be delivered from them that do not believe in Judea."
Their prayers, united with his prayer, were to secure his deliverance and
secure his safety, and were also to make the apostolic promise vital and cause
it to be fully realized.
All is to be sanctified and realized by the Word of God and prayer. God's
deep and wide river of promise will turn into the deadly miasma or be lost in
the morass, if we do not utilize these promises by prayer, and receive their
full and life-giving waters into our hearts.
The promise of the Holy Spirit to the disciples was in a very marked way
the "Promise of the Father," but it was only realized after many days of
continued and importunate praying. The promise was clear and definite that the
disciples should be endued with power from on high, but as a condition of
receiving that power of the Holy Spirit, they were instructed to "tarry in the
city of Jerusalem till ye be endued with power from on high." The fulfillment of
the promise depended upon the "tarrying." The promise of this "enduement of
power" was made sure by prayer. Prayer sealed it to glorious results. So we find
it written, "These continued with one accord, in prayer and supplication, with
the women." And it is significant that it was while they were praying, resting
their expectations on the surety of the promise, that the Holy Spirit fell upon
them and they were all "filled with the Holy Ghost." The promise and the prayer
went hand in hand.
After Jesus Christ made this large and definite promise to His disciples,
He ascended on high, and was seated at His Father's right hand of exaltation and
power. Yet the promise given by Him of sending the Holy Spirit was not fulfilled
by His enthronement merely, nor by the promise only, nor by the fact that the
Prophet Joel had foretold with transported raptures of the bright day of the
Spirit's coming. Neither was it that the Spirit's coming was the only hope of
God's cause in this world. All these all-powerful and all-engaging reasons were
not the immediate operative cause of the coming of the Holy Spirit. The solution
is found in the attitude of the disciples. The answer is found in the fact that
the disciples, with the women, spent several days in that upper room, in
earnest, specific, continued prayer. It was prayer that brought to pass the
famous day of Pentecost. And as it was then, so it can be now. Prayer can bring
a Pentecost in this day if there be the same kind of praying, for the promise
has not exhausted its power and vitality. The "promise of the Father" still
holds good for the present-day disciples.
Prayer, mighty prayer, united, continued, earnest prayer, for nearly two
weeks, brought the Holy Spirit to the Church and to the world in Pentecostal
glory and power. And mighty continued and united prayer will do the same now.
"Lord God, the Holy Ghost,
In this accepted hour;
As on the day of Pentecost,
Descend in all Thy power.
"We meet with one accord,
In our appointed place,
And wait the promise of our Lord,
The Spirit of all grace."
Nor must it be passed by that the promises of God to sinners of every kind
and degree are equally sure and steadfast, and are made real and true by the
earnest cries of all true penitents. It is just as true with the Divine promises
made to the unsaved when they repent and seek God, that they are realized in
answer to the prayers of broken-hearted sinners, as it is true that the promises
to believers are realized in answer to their prayers. The promise of pardon and
peace was the basis of the prayers of Saul of Tarsus during those days of
darkness and distress in the house of Judas, when the Lord told Ananias in order
to allay his fears, "Behold he prayeth."
The promise of mercy and an abundant pardon is tied up with seeking God and
caring upon Him by Isaiah:
"Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, and call ye upon him while he is
near.
"Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and
let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy, and to our God, for he
will abundantly pardon."
The praying sinner receives mercy because his prayer is grounded on the
promise of pardon made by Him whose right it is to pardon guilty sinners. The
penitent seeker after God obtains mercy because there is a definite promise of
mercy to all who seek the Lord in repentance and faith. Prayer always brings
forgiveness to the seeking soul. The abundant pardon is dependent upon the
promise made real by the promise of God to the sinner.
While salvation is promised to him who believes, the believing sinner is
always a praying sinner. God has no promise of pardon for a prayerless sinner
just as He has no promise for the prayerless professor of religion. "Behold he
prayeth" is not only the unfailing sign of sincerity and the evidence that the
sinner is proceeding in the right way to find God, but it is the unfailing
prophecy of an abundant pardon. Get the sinner to praying according to the
Divine promise, and he then is near the kingdom of God. The very best sign of
the returning prodigal is that he confesses his sins and begins to ask for the
lowliest place in his father's house.
It is the Divine promise of mercy, of forgiveness and of adoption which
gives the poor sinner hope. This encourages him to pray. This moves him in
distress to cry out, "Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy upon me."
"Thy promise is my only plea,
With this I venture nigh;
Thou call'st the burdened soul to Thee,
And such, O Lord, am I."
How large are the promises made to the saint! How great the promises given
to poor, hungry-hearted, lost sinners, ruined by the fall! And prayer has arms
sufficient to encompass them all, and prove them. How great the encouragement to
all souls, these promises of God! How firm the ground on which to rest our
faith! How stimulating to prayer! What firm ground on which to base our pleas in
praying!
The Lord hath promised good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures."
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The Possibilities of Prayer by E. M. Bounds - Public Domain [Copy Freely]