_Our sanctification does not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for God’s sake which we commonly do for our own. The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer. Prayer is nothing else but a sense of the presence of God._ —BROTHER LAWRENCE.
_Let me burn out for God. After all, whatever God may appoint, prayer is the great thing. Oh that I may be a man of prayer._ —HENRY MARTYN.
The possibilities and necessity of prayer, its power and results are manifested in arresting and changing the purposes of God and in relieving the stroke of His power. Abimelech was smitten by God:
So Abraham prayed unto God: and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants; and they bare _children_.
For the Lord had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah Abraham’s wife.
Job’s miserable mistaken comforters had so deported themselves in their controversy with Job that God’s wrath was kindled against them. “My servant Job shall pray for you,” said God, “for him will I accept.”
“And the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends.”
Jonah was in dire condition when “the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest.” When lots were cast, “the lot fell upon Jonah.” He was cast overboard into the sea, but “the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.... Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s belly ... and the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.”
When the disobedient prophet lifted up his voice in prayer, God heard and sent deliverance.
Pharaoh was a firm believer in the possibilities of prayer, and its ability to relieve. When staggering under the woeful curses of God, he pleaded with Moses to intercede for him. “Intreat the Lord for me,” was his pathetic appeal four times repeated when the plagues were scourging Egypt. Four times were these urgent appeals made to Moses, and four times did prayer lift the dread curse from the hard king and his doomed land.
The blasphemy and idolatry of Israel in making the golden calf and declaring their devotions to it were a fearful crime. The anger of God waxed hot, and He declared that He would destroy the offending people. The Lord was very wroth with Aaron also, and to Moses He said, “Let Me alone that I may destroy them.” But Moses prayed, and kept on praying; day and night he prayed forty days. He makes the record of his prayer struggle. “I fell down,” he says, “before the Lord at the first forty days and nights; I did neither eat bread nor drink water because of your sins which ye sinned in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger. For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure wherewith the Lord was hot against you to destroy you. But the Lord hearkened to me at this time also. And the Lord was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him. And I prayed for him also at the same time.”
“Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” It was the purpose of God to destroy that great and wicked city. But Nineveh prayed, covered with sackcloth; sitting in ashes she cried “mightily to God,” and “God repented of the evil that He had said He would do unto them; and He did it not.”
The message of God to Hezekiah was: “Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die and not live.” Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the Lord, and said: “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.” And Hezekiah wept sore. God said to Isaiah, “Go, say to Hezekiah, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears; behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years.”