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

by Dwight L. Moody

The two first and essential means of grace are the Word of God and 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.

Abraham was a man of prayer, and angels came down from heaven to converse with him. Jacob’s prayer was answered when he wrestled with God at the place he named Peniel, which means “face of God.” His meeting with the Lord resulted in Jacob having a mighty blessing, and even his brother Esau’s heart was softened towards him. The Lord gave Samuel as an answer to Hannah’s prayer for a child. Elijah’s prayer closed up the heavens for three years and six months, and when he prayed again, the heavens gave rain.

Our Master’s prayers were short when offered in public; but when he was alone with God, that was a different thing, and he could spend the whole night in communion with his Father.

Adoration has been defined as the act of rendering divine honor, including in it reverence, esteem, and love. Adoration literally signifies applying the hand to the mouth, “to kiss the hand.” In Eastern countries, this is one of the great marks of respect and submission. The importance of coming before God in this spirit is great, and thus it is so often impressed upon us in the Word of God.

, Newman Hall said, “Man’s worship, apart from revelation, has been uniformly characterized by selfishness. We come to God either to thank Him for benefits already received, or to implore still further benefits: food, raiment [clothing], health, safety, comfort.”

“We seem to go toward God, but, indeed, reflect upon ourselves, and this may be the reason why many times our prayers are sent forth, like the raven out of Noah’s ark, and never return. But when we make the glory of God the chief end of our devotion, they go forth like the dove, and return to us again with an olive branch.” [1]

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.

In the same way, when Job confessed his sin and prayed for his friends, the Lord heard him and restored his fortunes. God will hear our prayer and restore us when we take our true place before him, and confess and forsake our transgressions.

I sometimes tremble when I hear people quote promises and say God is bound to fulfill those promises to them, when all the time there is something in their own lives which they are not willing to give up.

I may search my heart, and pronounce it all right, but when God searches me as with a lighted candle, many things will come to light that I might have known nothing about.

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

We ought to endure much and sacrifice much, rather than permit discord and division to prevail in our hearts. Martin Luther said, “When two goats meet upon a narrow bridge over deep water, how do they behave? Neither of them can turn back again, neither can pass the other, because the bridge is too narrow; if they should thrust one another they might both fall into the water and be drowned. Nature, then, has taught them that if the one lays himself down and permits the other to go over him, both remain unhurt. Even so people should rather endure to be trod upon than to fall into debate and discord one with another.”

LUTHER SAID THIS!?

It is one of the most humiliating things in the present day to see how God’s family is divided up. If we love the Lord Jesus Christ, the burden of our hearts will be that God may bring us closer together, so that we may love one another and rise above all partisan feeling.

Unity among the people of God is a sort of foretaste of heaven. There we will not find any Baptists, or Methodists, or Congregationalists, or Episcopalians; we will all be one in Christ.

Did you ever notice that the last prayer Jesus Christ made on earth, before they led him away to Calvary, was that his disciples might all be one? He said, Neither do I pray for these alone, but also for those who shall believe in me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the clarity which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfect in one and that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me (John 17:20-23).

Everyone can say, “Lord, help me!” We all need help. As Christians, don’t we need more grace, more love, more purity of life, more righteousness? Then let’s make this prayer today.

Bishop John Charles Ryle has described Christ’s intercession as the ground and sureness of our faith with this illustration. “The bank note without a signature at the bottom is nothing but a worthless piece of paper. The stroke of a pen confers on it all its value. The prayer of a poor child of Adam is a feeble thing in itself, but once endorsed by the hand of the Lord Jesus, it avails much.” [7]

How often we hear something that is called prayer that doesn’t contain any asking! Ask, and it shall be given you (Matthew 7:7). I believe if we put all the stumbling blocks out of the way, God will answer our petitions. If we put away sin and come into his presence with pure hands, as he has commanded us to come, our prayers will have power with him.

He encourages us to come to him repeatedly and press our claims.

Too often we knock at mercy’s door, and then run away, instead of waiting for an entrance and an answer. Thus we act as if we were afraid of having our prayers answered.

So many people pray in that way; they do not wait for the answer. Our Lord teaches us here that we are not only to ask, but we are also to wait for the answer; if it does not come, we must seek to find out the reason. I believe that we get many blessings just by asking; others we do not get because there may be something in our life that needs to be brought to light.

“We are to ask with a beggar’s humility, to seek with a servant’s carefulness, and to knock with the confidence of a friend.”

Prayer is hardly ever mentioned alone in the Bible; it is prayer and earnestness, prayer and watchfulness, prayer and thanksgiving. It is useful to note that throughout Scripture, prayer is always linked with something else.

Then the highest type of Christian is the one who goes beyond asking and seeking and keeps knocking until the answer comes. If we knock, God has promised to open the door and grant our request. It may be years before the answer comes; he may keep us knocking, but he has promised that the answer will come.

Imagine a man knocking at the door of a house, long and loud. After he has done this for an hour, a window opens, and the occupant of the house puts out his head and says: “That is right my friend; I shall not open the door, but keep on knocking. It is excellent exercise, and you will be the healthier for it. Knock away till sundown, and then come again, and knock all tomorrow. After some days thus spent, you will attain to a state of mind in which you will no longer care to come in.” Is this what Jesus intended us to understand, when he said: “Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you”?

Fenelon’s prayer, “O God, take my heart for I cannot give it; and when Thou hast it, keep it for I cannot keep it for Thee; and save me in spite of myself.”[4]