HEARD AND ANSWERED PRAYERS
[p. 85] HEARD AND ANSWERED PRAYERS
1 John 5: 14, 15; Daniel 9: 20 - 24; 2 Kings 6: 17; Isaiah 38: 2 - 5
My subject this evening is heard and answered prayers. I have selected three out of many Scriptures bearing on this, believing that they are characteristic of all and serve to bring out the subject. Never was there a time when prayer was more necessary, and of course answered prayers; answered prayers are the ones that are effective. The verses in John’s epistle are intended to instruct us as to prayer, especially if we are urgent as to answers. All that is desired in our prayers is not granted, although they may be heard and even pleasing to God, for in everything we are to make our requests known to God by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving (Philippians 4: 6). God answers from His own point of view, although He loves to intimate to us that He answers because we pray.
The Lord, according to Matthew 18: 19, says, “If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven”. He gives us to understand it is done for us, and John’s remarks which I have read support this; he would encourage us as to consciousness of God. A person must believe that He is, but that in itself is not consciousness, consciousness of God. “By faith we apprehend that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that that which is seen should not take its origin from things which appear”, Hebrews 11: 3. That is all objective, but God would have us to be conscious of Himself. Indeed John goes so far as to say, “He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him”, 1 John 4: 16. We cannot but see that consciousness is there, that there is such a thing as being ‘God-conscious’,
[p. 86] if I may use that expression. Paul says that men “Should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us”, Acts 17: 27. John would make it nearer than that, bringing Him into our hearts that He might dwell there. Dwelling in love is not simply that I have love, but that love is active and is linking on with others. Thus God is pleased with us, and dwells in us, and we in Him.
Jacob made up his mind, after dreaming of the ladder extended down from heaven to him, that he was in the house of God: “This is none other but the house of God”, Genesis 28: 17. But he called it a dreadful place. You can understand there was not much in his consciousness of pleasure, whereas, in his more calculated moments very soon after, he named the place the house of God and determined it should be that, and it was that. And the next time he visited Bethel there was nothing of the dreadfulness about it. God came down to where Jacob was and stood beside him. God, as it were, was dwelling there; it was not an abstract thought, but God was there in Bethel, and with Jacob in it. We are the house of God, but it is as dwelling in love we are the house of God in the true sense. Still Jacob enjoyed the place and the pillar was erected and he poured a drink offering on it, meaning that God was pleased with him, and desired to be near him and talk with him, and to hear Jacob talk to Him, too (Genesis 35: 14).
John’s epistle would impress us with all this. He says: “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things” (chapter 3: 20), but then he continues: “If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight”. God would quiet any troubled heart, for Satan would trouble our hearts [p. 87] that they might be diverted from God, but God would show us that He is greater than our hearts. We must keep this in mind and never lose heart whatever happens, and then, if my heart does not condemn me, anything I ask I receive from Him, because I keep His commandments. That is the general position as to prayer, the sense that God hears us and that, if He hears us, we have the petitions we desire of Him. It is important to keep in mind an untroubled heart, an uncondemning heart; that is, that everything that ruffles is dealt with. So that there is restfulness in the presence of God, and consciousness that He hears us. Evidently it is not with sight, but, as sensitive, we act. The Holy Spirit enables us to grasp that, not only has He heard, but we are conscious that He hears. There is great nearness in that; then we are to wait for the answers, for in truth a great part of the believer’s life should be made up of waiting for the answers.
I have brought in Daniel because I regard him as a model for us in this matter. I could speak much of the Lord Himself, but I selected persons like ourselves, Daniel, Elisha, and Hezekiah. I might speak of Solomon, and of course many others. Indeed it is a most stimulating study in the Scriptures to follow up the heard and answered prayers. One might say the whole testimony is made to fit in with heard and answered prayers. The Lord, on the cross, was heard from the horns of the unicorns (Psalm 22: 21), “He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him, even length of days for ever and ever”, Psalm 21: 4. There are other prayers in the Old Testament, such as Solomon’s, that come down the whole history of Israel. God says, “I have heard thy prayer”, and He fills the temple on account of it, showing what He thinks of this kind of prayer.
Now Daniel is peculiarly one with whom God is pleased. The times of prayer are occasions for God;
[p. 88] the meetings for prayer that we have are occasions for God. He honours every one of them. He speaks of “my house of prayer”; that alludes to the temple, but to the assembly too. Although we come burdened on Monday evenings, not only with the burden of the testimony, but maybe with the cares of this life. God would intimate to us that He would make us glad in His house of prayer. Now Daniel represents a kind of praying man that stirs heaven; he prayed at length, for he represents spiritual brethren who are concerned about the testimony of God, and the history of it, and those who are responsible for it. They take account of the history of professing christendom and judge it before God. That is what Daniel was doing here. It begins in verse 3 of our chapter, “I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes: and I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments”. How pleased God was with that! Remember, it is Daniel who represents the principle of prayer more strikingly than most. When he heard the decree that exposed him to the judgment of the king to be cast into the lions’ den, “he kneeled upon his knees”. You may say, What is the use of saying he kneeled on his knees? God is stressing that it was real kneeling, real exercise. He prayed three times a day with his window opened towards Jerusalem. He is a known man to heaven on this line, a fearless man, a martyr in his prayers, for martyrdom is a suitable accompaniment to prayer.
Now he is praying and Gabriel comes swiftly to him and tells him he is greatly beloved. He is ministering to heaven in his prayer, he is delightful to heaven, and all such praying saints are likewise pleasing to heaven. So our prayers and meetings for [p. 89] prayer, dear brethren, are part of the divine service, and occasions of pleasure to God, and He makes it known to us, for we become conscious of His nearness in prayer. God looks for it, for our consciousness, and thus He is pleased with us. The point that Gabriel stressed is that Daniel is beloved. He can pray so that God is pleased with him. God is looking for His part in all our service, and in no case should God’s part be omitted, in our reading of the Scriptures, in our meetings for prayer, as well as on all other such occasions. Daniel desired to know the mind of God as to his people and city, he was concerned as to the completion of things; and surely, dear brethren, finality is to be in our mind in our prayers. Our sojourn here is near its end. Daniel had in mind the finality of all that God had introduced in relation to Israel. Jerusalem was in ruins. What was to be the culmination of all this? Daniel knew God, and with God there is to be a finish, a finish to everything. What is to be the finish of our times? John says we know that antichrist comes. We do not need further revelation about that; it is a settled matter. What is to be understood is that he is kept back; the apostle tells us there is that which now hinders and also He who hinders until He be taken away (2 Thessalonians 2: 7). That is a matter of exercise. And another thing, we are to count the number of the beast. “He that has understanding let him count the number of the beast”, Revelation 13: 18. The Scriptures give us that number, and it is important we should know how to count it.
Daniel has in mind the finality of things and is asking about it, and Gabriel is sent to him and he says in verse 24, “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision [p. 90] and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy”. That is finality, for the time is to come. The Lord told His disciples, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power”, Acts 1: 7. But still there is spiritual finality. What is in mind in our meetings for prayer? Things are not to go on indefinitely as they are now. There is finality, and the spiritual will gather up in the presence of God what the finality is to be. There are the public things we have alluded to, but there is spiritual finality, and if I get a grasp of that in my soul, I keep on praying, for I want to be in that finality. In that way Daniel is a trustworthy man. God can trust him. But even with Daniel it is, “Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days” (chapter 12: 12). There are forty-five days added here, and we are to watch lest we miss the forty-five days, for the blessing is attached to the waiting and coming to that number of days.
Daniel was a man greatly beloved according to the thoughts of heaven, and as such he was spoken to by Gabriel, the priestly angel. Praying is a priestly matter, and pleases God peculiarly, “Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness, and let thy saints shout for joy”, Psalm 132: 9. God is pleased with this, for He looks for spiritual happiness as we turn our faces towards Him.
Now I want to come to Elisha, another most practical servant of God, a man who can take a second place in the service of God, like John in the New Testament. In referring to this passage I desire to speak to young men. We need our eyes open at the present time. Young men are apt to be discouraged, and young people naturally aspire to things that perhaps are not in faith at all. We have to watch ourselves as to our desires, for young people are apt to have mixed motives. We are to watch, to discern that, “I myself with the mind serve God’s law”, Romans 7: 25. We need to discern inwardly by habitually checking up our motives. Let the word of God have full play on the conscience. As the offerings of old were slain the inwards were all divided and presented to God and burned on the altar. The word of God is living and operative, it divides between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebrews 4: 12). Therefore I enter into my closet and shut the door, and I pray to my Father in secret, and my Father who sees in secret shall reward me openly. God is looking into my heart. What is my motive? What am I asking these things for?
The young man says to Elisha, “Alas, my master! how shall we do?”. He was occupied with the number of the Syrian army. It should be, What will God do? God is looking at the motives as young people pray. They need our sympathy today, young men of a certain age, we need to be feeling for them, for it may be the hour of their defeat or their triumph. Let it be the latter, but it will only be through prayer. So as searching my heart, what are my motives? The Father sees the secrets: “All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do”, Hebrews 4: 13. The young men need to have their eyes opened to these things and to look around. The first time the Lord touched the eyes of the blind man in Mark 8 that man saw men as trees walking. Things were cloudy at first; his prayer would be uncertain at that time. We need to see things clearly. The Lord gave him a second touch and he saw all things clearly, not only persons but things. The whole position was clear. Thus I pray.
Elisha prayed, and God opened this young man’s eyes. God has great sympathy with the young men, as we read in Zechariah 2: 4, “Run, speak to this [p. 92] young man, saying. Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls for the multitude of men and cattle therein”. Then we are told, “The mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha”, 2 Kings 6: 17. God is watching, and there is divine protection all round him. That is Elisha’s prayer. He makes a great deal of the sons of the prophets. It is a ministry that takes account of the young men at the present time. This young man is in his mind; he is his servant and he asks Jehovah about him, and God opened his eyes. It is not that the army is sent, but God opened his eyes to see it, because the testimony is the most interesting thing in the universe to God. Elisha represents that. Let this young man see it, he says, and God answers his prayer. We may indeed be encouraged to pray for the younger men and younger women. Nature may sway them, hence the need for their eyes to be opened.
Hezekiah is the next example. In Isaiah 38 we read: “Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the Lord”. He was sick unto death, and it was by divine appointment. It is a solemn matter that one should be made sick prophetically. The word is, “In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came unto him, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live”. It is a judicial matter, and a prophetic matter. This brings up the whole question of our bodies. The Lord is for the body and the body for the Lord; our bodies are greatly valued. “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” 1 Corinthians 6: 19. So if sickness occur, and sickness unto death, how solemn! It was divinely prophesied that Hezekiah should die and not live. That is a matter of appeal to us all. There are sects that make the body a hobby, and make much of [p. 93] faith-healing, because they abuse the truth and darken it by words without knowledge. We should not let the truth slip away or become dormant. Hezekiah was an important man, and God told him he was to die and not live, and he “turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the Lord”. He was a praying king and a greatly valued man.
In chapter 37 we read of his entering the house of God himself and laying the whole matter of the attack of the Assyrian before God. God listened, and said, “He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor cast a bank against it”, Isaiah 37: 33. That is a comfort. This is an answer to what I may call a political prayer. God would have us understand things and leave nothing out of our prayers that should be in them. This matter was very urgent. The attack was serious and might mean the ruin of the testimony. These political matters may enter into the testimony, for Satan is active, and it matters little what he uses to interfere with what God is doing at the present time. So Hezekiah’s first prayer is in relation to that, and God covers His people. We know what things are coming to; the Scriptures are plain about that. We know what the nations are coming to; this is no time for national feelings, for they are all drifting in one direction, but in the midst of all this there is the apple of God’s eye, as in the days of the Acts, when Saul breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord. It was with the Lord that Saul had to do. He has all power in heaven and earth, and Saul was broken down and the assemblies had rest. If we are to be protected, the question is, Are we pleasing to God? Are we worth it? We are to think of God’s side. Am I worth protecting under the eyes of God? It is a question of what is pleasing to God. God assures Hezekiah, saying, He will not come here; he may elsewhere, but God was answering [p. 94] prayer. Not only that, but Sennacherib is slain himself and his army destroyed, all because of prayer.
In Isaiah 38 it is Hezekiah himself, not the people of God, or the temple of Jehovah, or Jerusalem, but the praying man himself, and God says, “Thou shalt die, and not live”. When we come to the banks of the Jordan, what are our resources? What I have professed to be, am I now? Hezekiah is a praying man; his face is turned to the wall and he prays to God. He can do nothing, but then God can still do something, and so he prays and says, “Remember now, O Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight”. He was worth something; it was no mere profession. What value am I to God? God is constantly looking for values, something of worth. Hezekiah was of worth towards Jehovah, there is no question of it; Jehovah does not deny it, “Hezekiah wept sore. Then came the word of the Lord to Isaiah saying, Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years”. It is in answer to prayer; it is what we must expect. Fifteen years is a considerable time in the testimony of God. Many of us would have prayed for certain of our dear brethren that are gone, if only we could have them fifteen years more. But the point is, Am I worth being allowed to remain here? This is a challenge to our hearts. Would any man in Israel be heard like this? Not at all. This was a man who prayed. What he had been, God had made him. Think of his father, think of the kings before him. His father refused to take a sign from Jehovah. In chapter 7: 12 he says, “I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord”. He would not ask for a sign, he would not pray, nor even be benefited by that sign. But here is a man who prays and God answers his [p. 95] prayers: He is worth keeping on earth. Hence the fifteen years are added, for he is needed here.
I am urging that we look abroad on the field and think of the need of the testimony, the need of leadership, the need of ability to care for the people of God. Think of Hezekiah; is there anyone like him? Jehovah says, “I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years”. So, dear brethren, we should be encouraged to go on, submitting to the will of God, of course. God sends Isaiah to tell Hezekiah he is to die, and not live, but God is God, and can we not ask God to modify? Yes, God will listen to us. Let us urge the necessity for it, for surely if I ask anything of God there should be some explanation of it. Am I worth being preserved? Let me give my reasons and God will listen. He is a God who will hear prayer, and we may leave it with Him. If it is wisdom, He will add fifteen years or more. God loves to see this exercise with us, as we look abroad on the field and pray, and feel the necessity for ministering to the brethren. God will restore, and add whatever it pleases Him to add for the sake of His people and for the sake of His testimony.