You shall note that all the wonders that God did in the old times were first of all sought at his hands by the earnest prayers of his believing people. The promise comes alone, with no preventing merit to precede it, but the blessing promised always follows its herald, prayer. We bid you turn back to sacred history, and you will find that never did a great mercy come to this world, unheralded by prayer. Prayer, we assert, is the prelude of all mercies. He who knoweth how to use that sacred art of prayer will obtain so much thereby, that from its very profitableness he will be led to speak of it with the highest reverence. Many despise prayer: they despise it, because they do not understand it. Now, this morning I shall try, as God shall help me, first to speak of prayer as the prelude of blessing: next I shall try to show why prayer is thus constituted by God the forerunner of his mercies, and then I shall close by an exhortation, as earnest as I can make it, exhorting you to pray, if you would obtain blessings. We get the promise by enquiry, and we get the fulfillment of it by again enquiring at God's hands. ![]() We have enquired about the promise, and then we go and enquire again, until we get an answer that the promised gift has arrived and is ours. We enquire as to what the present is by the reading of the note, and then, if it arrive not, we call at the accustomed place where the parcel ought to have been left, and we ask or enquire for such and such a thing. We expect something to come as a present from a friend: we first have the note, whereby we are informed it is upon the road. I ask and thus I say "Wilt thou answer me, O Lord? Wilt thou keep thy promise? Or wilt thou shut up thine ear, because I misunderstand my own wants and mistake thy promise." Brethren, we must use enquiry in prayer, and regard prayer as being, first, an enquiry for the promise, and shell on the strength of that promise an enquiry for the fulfillment. I expect the blessing to arrive I go and enquire whether there is any tidings of its coming. After prayer I look out for the answer I expect to be heard, and if I am not answered I pray again, and my repeated prayers are but fresh enquiries. I take to him his own word of covenant, and I say to him, "O Lord, wilt thou not fulfill it, and wilt thou not fulfill it now?" So that there, again, prayer is enquiry. Having enquired so far as that, I take that promise, and on my bended knees I enquire of God whether he will fulfill his own promise. I turn to my Bible and I seek to find the promise whereby the thing which I desire to seek is certified to me as being a thing which God is willing to give. No man can pray aright, unless he views prayer in that light. "I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel." Prayer, then, is an enquiry. ![]() The word used here to express the idea of prayer is a suggestive one. He would give them a spirit of prayer, by which they should cry earnestly for the blessing, and then when they should have cried aloud unto the living God, he would be pleased to answer them from heaven, his dwelling-place. ![]() God in this verse declares, that though the promise was made, and though he would fulfill it, yet he would not fulfill it until his people asked him so to do. In reading the chapter we have seen the great and exceeding precious promises which God had made to the favored nation of Israel. Oh, my brothers, if we want to have God with us, pass the watchword round, “Let us pray.” Let us pray after the fashion of the widow who was importunate and would not be repulsed remember, it is written, “Men ought always to pray, and not to faint.” Where prayer is fervent God is present."Thus saith the Lord God I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them I will increase them with men like a flock."-Ezekiel 36:37 If anything be the matter with the lungs we fear consumption : prayer-meetings are the lungs of the church, and anything the matter there means consumption to the church, or at best a gradual decline, attended with general debility. Want of prayer cuts the sinews of the church for practical working she is lame, feeble, impotent, if prayer be gone. ![]() I do not believe God will ever be long with a church that does not pray: and I feel certain that when meetings for prayer, when family prayer, when private prayer, when any form of prayer comes to be at a discount, the Lord will leave the people to learn their weakness. Prayer Is The Breath Of Faith: From Charles Spurgeon The Best War-Cry
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