God sent Isaiah to say to Hezekiah, “Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live;” and Hezekiah prayed, and God sent Isaiah back to say, “I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears; behold I will add unto thy days fifteen years.” “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” was God’s message by Jonah. But Nineveh 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 possibilities of prayer are seen from the divers conditions it reaches and the diverse ends it secures. Elijah prayed over a dead child, and it came to life; Elisha did the same thing; Christ prayed at Lazarus’s grave, and Lazarus came forth. Peter kneeled down and prayed beside dead Dorcas, and she opened her eyes and sat up, and Peter presented her alive to the distressed company. Paul prayed for Publius, and healed him. Jacob’s praying changed Esau’s murderous hate into the kisses of the tenderest brotherly embrace. God gave to Rebecca Jacob and Esau because Isaac prayed for her. Joseph was the child of Rachel’s prayers. Hannah’s praying gave Samuel to Israel. John the Baptist was given to Elizabeth, barren and past age as she was, in answer to the prayer of Zacharias. Elisha’s praying brought famine or harvest to Israel; as he prayed so it was. Ezra’s praying carried the Spirit of God in heart-breaking conviction to the entire city of Jerusalem, and brought them in tears of repentance back to God. Isaiah’s praying carried the shadow of the sun back ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz.
In answer to Hezekiah’s praying an angel slew one hundred and eighty-five thousand of Sennacherib’s army in one night. Daniel’s praying opened to him the vision of prophecy, helped him to administer the affairs of a mighty kingdom, and sent an angel to shut the lions’ mouths. The angel was sent to Cornelius, and the Gospel opened through him to the Gentile world, because his “prayers and alms had come up as a memorial before God.” “And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets;” of Paul and Peter, and John and the Apostles, and the holy company of saints, reformers, and martyrs, who, through praying, “subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.”
Prayer puts God in the matter with commanding force: “Ask of Me things to come concerning My sons,” says God, “and concerning the work of My hands command ye Me.” We are charged in God’s Word “always to pray,” “in everything by prayer,” “continuing instant in prayer,” to “pray everywhere,” “praying always.” The promise is as illimitable as the command is comprehensive. “All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive,” “whatever ye shall ask,” “if ye shall ask anything.” “Ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you.” “Whatsoever ye ask the Father He will give it to you.” If there is anything not involved in “All things whatsoever,” or not found in the phrase “Ask anything,” then these things may be left out of prayer. Language could not cover a wider range, nor involve more fully all _minutia_. These statements are but samples of the all-comprehending possibilities of prayer under the promises of God to those who meet the conditions of right praying.
These passages, though, give but a general outline of the immense regions over which prayer extends its sway. Beyond these the effects of prayer reaches and secures good from regions which cannot be traversed by language or thought. Paul exhausted language and thought in praying, but conscious of necessities not covered and realms of good not reached he covers these impenetrable and undiscovered regions by this general plea, “unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.” The promise is, “Call upon Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.”