Prevailing Prayer (Updated, Annotated): A Thorough Study on the Subject of Prayer

by Dwight L. Moody

If pain afflict, or wrongs oppress; If cares distract, or fears dismay; If guilt deject, if sin distress; The remedy’s before you - Pray!

The two first and essential means of grace are the Word of God and prayer. Conversion comes through these, for we are born again by the word of God, which lives and abides for ever (1 Peter 1:23), and whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10:13).

we cannot grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ unless we also speak to him in prayer.

These two instruments of grace must be applied in the right proportion. If we read the Word and do not pray, we may become puffed up with knowledge, without the love that builds others up. If we pray without reading the Word, we will be ignorant of the mind and will of God, and become mystical and fanatical, and liable to be blown around by every wind of doctrine.

Amen. Spot on. Don't read without praying and don't pray without reading.

Those who have left the deepest impression on this sin-cursed earth have been men and women of prayer.

and we have the same access to him that Elijah had. We have the same permission to go to God and ask the fire from heaven to come down and consume our lusts and passions – to burn up our impurities and let Christ shine through us.

If those who have been backsliders will return to God, they will see how quickly God will answer prayer.

Remember too how the face of Moses shone as he came down from Mount Sinai with the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments in his hand; he had been in communion with God. When Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come near him (Exodus 34:30), and Moses had to put a veil over his face. In the same way, when we get really into communion with God, he lifts up his countenance – his image – upon us, and instead of our having gloomy looks, our faces will shine, because God has heard and answered our prayers.

Following this, Jesus preached that great discourse known as the Sermon on the Mount – the most wonderful sermon that has ever been preached to mortal men. Probably no sermon has done so much good, and it was preceded by a night of prayer. If our sermons and messages are going to reach the hearts and consciences of the people, we must spend a considerable amount of time in prayer to God, that there may be power with the words we deliver.

If our spiritually dead ones are to be raised, we must first get power with God.

The reason we so often fail in moving our friends is that we try to win them without first getting power with God.

I would rather know how to pray like Daniel than to preach like Gabriel. If you get love into your soul, so that the grace of God may come down in answer to prayer, there will be no trouble reaching the people. It is not by eloquent sermons that perishing souls are going to be reached; we need the power of God in order that the blessing may come down.

Martin Luther[2] and his companions were men of such mighty pleading with God that they broke the spell of ages, and laid nations subdued at the foot of the cross. John Knox grasped all of Scotland in his strong arms of faith; his prayers terrified tyrants. George Whitefield,[3] after much holy, faithful, closet pleading, went to the Devil’s fair, and took more than a thousand souls out of the paw of the lion in one day. Wherever there were open spaces around London and crowds gathered for entertainment and events such as the London Fair, he preached in open air, bringing the message of the gospel out of the church building and to the rowdy crowds.

“Give me children,” cried Rachel, “or else I die.” “Let me breathe,” says a man gasping, “or else I die.” “Let me pray,” says the Christian, “or else I die.”[6]

The Father’s ancient grace we sing, That chose us in our head; Ordaining Christ, our God and King, To suffer in our stead. The sacred Son, in equal strains, With reverence we address For all His grace, and dying pains, And splendid righteousness. With tuneful tongue the Holy Ghost For His great work we praise, Whose power inspires the blood-bought host Their grateful voice to raise. Thus the Eternal Three in One We join to praise, for grace And endless glory through the Son, As shining from His face. – Thomas Row (1786–1864)

Holiness belongs to God; sinfulness belongs to us.

Thomas Brooks, that grand old Puritan writer, said, “A person of real holiness is much affected and taken up in the admiration of the holiness of God. Unholy persons may be somewhat affected and taken with the other excellences of God; it is only holy souls that are taken and affected with his holiness.” He said the more holy any person is, the more deeply he or she is affected by God’s holiness.

“Nothing puts the sinner into a depression as much as a conversation on the holiness of God,” he said. “It is as the handwriting on the wall; nothing makes the head and heart of a sinner to ache like a sermon upon the Holy One; nothing galls and gripes, nothing stings and terrifies unsanctified ones, like a lively setting forth of the holiness of God. But to holy souls there are no discourses that do more suit and satisfy them, that do more delight and content them, that do more please and profit them, than those that do most fully and powerfully discover God to be glorious in holiness.”[2]

When we see the holiness of God, we will adore and magnify him.

You remember also how it was with Peter. When Christ made himself known to him at the lakeshore, Peter fell at his feet and said, Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man (Luke 5:8). A sight of God is enough to show us how holy he is, and how unholy we are.

The beloved disciple, John, spoke of the feeling he and others had concerning Jesus when they were abiding with him as their Lord. He wrote, we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father (John 1:14). No matter how intimate their companionship and tender their love, they reverenced as much as they communed, and adored as much as they loved.

When I think of the irreverence of the present time, it seems to me that we have fallen on evil days. As Christians, when we draw near to God in prayer, let’s give him his rightful place. Therefore, receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us hold fast to the grace, by which we serve God, pleasing him with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:28-29).

If we had a higher standard of life in the church of God, there would be thousands more flocking into the kingdom. It was the same in the past. When God’s believing children turned away from their sins and their idols, the fear of God fell upon the people around them.

What we want in these days is a true and deep revival in the church of God. I have little sympathy with the idea that God is going to reach the masses by a cold and formal church. The judgment of God must begin with us.

when God is honored, conscience is purified. God is honored by confession of sin every way. It honors his omniscience; that he is all-seeing, that he sees our sins and searches the hearts. Our secrets are not hid from him. It honors his power.”

“With men it is, confess, and have execution, but with God, confess, and have mercy.

A prayer without penitence is a prayer without acceptance.

Charles Spurgeon

Why is it that so many of our children are wandering into the drinking saloons, drifting away into infidelity and going down to a dishonored grave? There seems to be very little power in the Christianity of the present time.

It may shock some of us to think our prayers are an abomination to God, yet if any are living in known sin, this is what God’s Word says about them. If we are not willing to turn from sin and obey God’s law, we have no right to expect that he will answer our prayers. Unconfessed sin is unforgiven sin, and unforgiven sin is the darkest, foulest thing on this sin-cursed earth.

The prayer of the humble and the contrite heart is a delight to God. There is no sound that goes up from this sin-cursed earth so sweet to his ear as the prayer of the man who does what is right.

I am afraid those of us who are busy in the Lord’s work are very often in danger of neglecting our vineyard.

If there is anything in our lives that is wrong, let’s ask God to show it to us. Have we been selfish? Have we been more protective of our own reputation than of the honor of God? Elijah thought he was zealous for the honor of God, but it turned out that it was his own honor after all; self was really at the bottom of it. One of the saddest things, I think, that Christ had to deal with in his disciples was this very thing; there was a constant struggle between them as to who should be the greatest, instead of each one taking the humblest place and being least in his own estimation.

I ask again, are we selfish or jealous? Are we willing to hear of others being used of God more than we are? Are our Methodist friends willing to hear of a great revival of God’s work among the Baptists? Would they rejoice in their souls to hear of such efforts being blessed? Are Baptists willing to hear of a reviving of God’s work in the Methodist, Congregational, or other churches?

I believe today, by its lukewarm quality and formality, the Christian church is making more nonbelievers than all the books that nonbelievers ever wrote. I do not fear pagan lectures half so much as the cold and dead formalism in the professing church at the present time. One prayer meeting like the one the disciples had on the day of Pentecost would shake the whole nonbelieving fraternity.

If I have at any time taken what does not belong to me, and am not willing to make restitution, my prayers will not go very far toward heaven.

If there is true repentance, it will bring forth fruit. If we have done wrong to someone, we should never ask God to forgive us until we are willing to make restitution. If I have done any man a great injustice and can make it good, I do not need to ask God to forgive me until I am willing to forgive first.

Speak, son of dust! Thy flesh He took And heaven for thee forsook. Speak child of death! Thy death He died, Bless thou the crucified. – Dr. Horatius Bonar (1808–1889)

Gurnall said, “An unthankful saint carries a contradiction with it. ‘Evil’ and ‘unthankful’ are twins that live and die together; as any one ceases to be evil, he begins to be thankful. Consider it is that which God both expects and promises himself at your hands; he made you for this end. When the vote passed in heaven for your being, yea, happy being, in Christ, it was upon this account, that you should be ‘a name and a praise’ to him on earth in time, and in heaven to eternity.”

God doesn’t withhold himself from us. He is our portion, father, husband, and friend. “God is his own happiness, and admits you to enjoy him,” Gurnall said. “Oh, what honor is this, for the subject to drink in his prince’s cup!

And all this, not the purchase of your sweat, much less blood; the feast is paid for by another hand and you are welcome: only he expects your thanks to the founder… No sin-offering is imposed under the gospel; thank offerings are all he looks for.”[2]

There is a great deal more said in the Bible about praise than prayer, yet how few praise meetings there are!

Even if nothing else called for thankfulness, the truth that Jesus Christ loves us and gave himself for us would always be an ample cause for it.

A farmer was once found kneeling at a soldier’s grave near Nashville. Someone came to him and said, “Why do you pay so much attention to this grave? Was your son buried here?” “No,” he said. “During the war my family were all sick; I knew not how to leave them. I was drafted. One of my neighbors came over and said, ‘I will go for you; I have no family.’ He went off. He was wounded at Chickamauga. He was carried to the hospital, and there died. And, sir, I have come a great many miles, that I might write over his grave these words, ‘He died for me.’”

Now, oh joy! my sins are pardoned! Now I can and do believe! All I have; and am, and shall be, To my precious Lord I give; He roused my deathly slumbers, He dispersed my soul’s dark night; Whispered peace, and drew me to Him Made Himself my chief delight.

I have no sympathy with the idea of universal sonship – that all men are the sons and daughters of God. The Bible teaches very plainly that we are adopted into the family of God. If all were sons, God would not need to adopt any.

Abraham is spoken of as a man of faith, but it is not told how he denied his wife down in Egypt; all that had been forgiven. Moses was kept out of the Promised Land because he lost patience, but this is not mentioned in the New Testament, though his name appears in the apostle’s roll of honor. Samson too is named, but his sins are not brought up again. Why, we even read of “righteous Lot.” He did not look much like a righteous man in the Old Testament story, but he was forgiven, and God made him righteous. If we are once forgiven by God, our sins will be remembered against us no more. This is God’s eternal decree.

The voice of sin may be loud, but the voice of forgiveness is louder.

One of the saddest things in the present day is the division in God’s church.

It is the cunning trick of the Devil to divide us that he may destroy us.

We ought to endure much and sacrifice much, rather than permit discord and division to prevail in our hearts.