Doctrines of Prayer, Faith, and Peace by James Hastings: Hastings, James - Doctrine of Prayer: 084. Answers Do Come

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Doctrines of Prayer, Faith, and Peace by James Hastings: Hastings, James - Doctrine of Prayer: 084. Answers Do Come



TOPIC: Hastings, James - Doctrine of Prayer (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 084. Answers Do Come

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II.

ANSWERS DO COME.

1. So the next thing is that answers to prayer do undoubtedly come. Answers of a most striking and impressive kind to intercessory prayer are of frequent occurrence, and constitute one of the most interesting features of mission work. This is especially the case where God seems to lay the burden of particular souls upon the hearts of some of His praying people. If we are living in full contact with and completely under the influence of the Holy Spirit, it is only reasonable to suppose that He will guide us in this important matter. He not only knows the things of God, but He must needs be able also to read the hearts of men, and to discover the spiritual condition of each. When, therefore, He sees that certain persons are in a receptive condition, inasmuch as He ever desires the co-operation of His people in His work of mercy, it would appear that He moves the hearts of those who know the power of prayer to pray for those particular persons. Having thus inspired the prayer, He can give an answer in accordance with His own desire, and also in accordance with the great law of prayer which He has ordained, and that without any inconsistency with those great principles of the moral government of the world which are the foundation of all God’s dealings with man.

I will dare to affirm that, so far from experiences of direct answers to prayer being rare and exceptional, it is, on the contrary, a rare thing to meet with a matured and experienced Christian who is unable to refer to certain incidents in his career in which, according to the best of his belief, definite answers were granted, and that, against apparent probability, to prayers for temporal benefits. [Note: Ibid., 185.]

We make the experiment, or rather, the experiment has been made by vast numbers of people in different ages, and belief in its value and efficacy has been substantiated by the fact that prayer has worked. Men have asked, and they have received. That is as certain as the multiplication table. [Note: George Henry Russell Garcia, 202.]

2. It will be said that such conclusions are often very uncritical, and that, no doubt, many of these supposed answers can be explained in other ways; but, while it is freely admitted that this may be so in a large number of cases, it is equally clear that there remains a very considerable proportion of instances of which no such statement would be true, and in not a few of them our choice would have to lie between admitting that prayer had been answered and affirming that an extraordinary coincidence, or series of coincidences, had occurred. Surely common honesty demands that we should consider with an unbiased mind the comparative reasonableness of these alternative hypotheses.

It must excite the attention of every thoughtful person, that the belief, God hears prayer, is found among all nations who have a knowledge of Deity, and is fundamentally peculiar to the whole human race. There must be a greater number of experiences of answers to prayer than is generally supposed, else the belief in the utility of prayer would not be so general, vivid, and prevalent. [Note: M. H. Reinhard.]

As a matter of fact, whether it is because when we pray for others we are less blind to their real and highest needs than we are when we pray for ourselves, or whether it is because such prayers, being more disinterested, are more truly prayers “in His name,” it is the experience of many with whom I have spoken on this subject that such prayers are answered too often and in too striking a way to make the hypothesis of coincidence at all a possible explanation. [Note: B. H. Streeter, Restatement and Reunion, 27.]