By Vesta Mangun
This is a day of pragmatic values and things that are measured by whether or not they produce their intended result. This is true in the world of business, the world of science, and in the church of the living God. We are looking for the shortcut to conserve time, energy, and finances. We want the easy route. You can improve upon sophisticated equipment, technology, medicine, education. But you will never improve on the power and force of prayer.
The greatest people on the earth are those who pray. Not those who talk about it, or those who say they believe in it, but the people who take time to pray. They don’t have time to pray it has to be taken from someplace else, which is very important, but less important than prayer. The people that have done the most for God have been those preeminent in prayer. Those people are winning souls, solving the hardest problems, and answering the hardest questions.They are awakening churches, supplying men, and money for missions post. The hand that reaches out to save has to first clasp the throne of God.
There is no power like that of prevailing prayer. While the worlds progress in science, and art, the church is slow to learn that it cannot improve upon the examples of travailing and prevailing prayer of the heroes of faith in the old and new testament. If a man can pray, he can do anything. He has heaven and earth at his disposal.
God will, by prayer of the humblest ones, do what otherwise he could not. You can do nothing greater than prayer. Prayer is striking the winning blow. Whatever else after that is gathering up the results of prevailing prayer. Therefore prayer is the power on earth that commands the power of all of heaven.
The greatest benefactor that this world could ever have is the individual that will bring us back to the art of the prevailing prayer of faith. The prayers of God’s saints are the capitol stop of heaven by which God carries out his great plan upon this earth.
God conditions the very life of his church upon the prevailing prayer of faith. Prayer has brought health to the sick, hearing to the deaf, speech to dumb, sight to the blind, life to the dead, salvation to the lost, and has cast the devil out of many. Prevailing prayer of faith should be the main business of the church of our day.
Every day we need to pray more. If prayer is truth, it is the greatest truth. If the church will not pray, God will not act. God will never go over the head of his church, to enforce any decision. He cannot take things out of it’s hands; he put them there.
Blessed is the church that is praying; it shall be filled. Churches that pray together, grow together, work together, love each other, and souls are saved. Individuals, families, pastors, and the Lord are all blessed by this.
This house shall be called a house of prayer. Holy men and women of the past who subdued the powers of hell were more than conquerors. These people changed the course of national values, subdued kingdoms, obtained promises, and wrought righteousness. All these were men and women of intensified, insinuative, intercessory prayer.
The men and women of our day who are affecting our generation, have pushed back the horizons and established churches on hostile soil. They have turned the world upside down. They have started revival that the devil in hell can’t stop. They are men and women of the prevailing prayer of faith.
Here is a question: Would you answer for me, what is prevailing prayer of faith? First, permit me to tell what it is not. It is not programs, education, personal charisma, personality, oratory, administration, advertising, how we win friends, influence people, architectural triumphs, real estate, embellishment of music, robed choirs, stained windows, carpet, pews, aquderments, polistery, refinement, or money. Everything we do must be underlined by prayer. The prevailing prayer is not foxhole praying, half-hearted, luke-warm, spasmodic, blowing hot, blowing cold, or just when you are in trouble. It is not a little lay me down to sleep bedtime prayer either. The prevailing prayer of faith is the spirit itself making intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. It is the exceeding greatness
of his power to us who believe in it working in us. Prevailing prayer of faith is resurrection power. It is the mighty weapons to the pulling down of strongholds. It is the wrestling against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world and spiritual wickedness in high places. It is the portrayed prayer, groaning prayer, fasting prayer, weeping, speechless prayer, and the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous; it avails much. It is the ascending and descending, taking petitions and bringing back answers. It is the most perfect form of prayer. It can touch the highest heaven and can shake the lowest hell.
