E.M.Bounds

The message of God to Hezekiah was a warning of death, as can be seen in this passage from Isaiah:
Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live. Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the Lord, and said, Remember now, O Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore. Then came the word of the Lord to Isaiah, saying, Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years.(Isa. 38:1–5)
Hezekiah’s prayer changed God’s purpose, and fifteen years were added to his life.

The Syrophenician woman (see Mark 7:24–30), the importunate 1 widow (see Luke 18:1–7), and the friend at midnight (see Luke 11:5–10) are wonderful lessons of what dauntless prayer can do in mastering or defying conditions, in changing defeat into victory and triumphing in the regions of despair.
All these people of God knew how to pray and how to prevail in prayer. Their faith in prayer was no passing attitude that changed with the wind or with their own feelings and circumstances; they were confident that God always heard and answered, that His ear was always open to the cry of His children, and that the power to do what was asked of Him was equal to His willingness. Thus, strong in faith and in prayer, they
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.(Heb. 11:33–34)

Everything was possible to the men and women who knew how to pray, and it is still possible today. Prayer, indeed, opened a limitless storehouse, and God’s hand withheld nothing. Prayer introduced those who practiced it into a world of privilege, and brought the strength and wealth of heaven down to the aid of finite man. What rich and wonderful power they had who had learned the secret of victorious approach to God! With Moses it saved a nation; with Ezra it saved a church. (See Ezra 1:1–4 and Ezra 7–9.)
And yet, strange as it seems when we contemplate the wonders of which God’s people had been witnesses, they became slack in prayer. The mighty hold upon God, which had so often struck awe and terror into the hearts of their enemies, lost its grip.

In vain had the decree established the divine order, the divine call, Ask of Me. From their earnest and fruitful crying to God, the Israelites turned their faces to pagan gods and cried in vain for the answers that could never come. Thus, they sank into that godless and pitiful state in which they lost their purpose in life, because the link with the Eternal had been broken. Their favored dispensation of prayer was forgotten; they no longer knew how to pray.
What a contrast to the achievements that brighten up other pages of the Holy Scriptures! The power that worked through Elijah and Elisha, in answer to prayer, reached down even to the grave. Through both men, a child was

raised from the dead (see 1 Kings 17:17–24; 2 Kings 4:18–37), and the powers of famine were broken. (See 1 Kings 18:1–2, 41–45; 2 Kings 4:38–44.) Note what James wrote about Elijah:
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.(James 5:16–18)
How wide is the provision of the grace of praying, as administered in that marvelous dispensation! The saints of old prayed wondrously. Why could their praying not save the era from decay and death? Was it not because they had lost the fire without which all praying degenerates into a lifeless form? It takes effort and toil and care to prepare the incense. Prayer is no laggard’s work. When all the rich, spiced graces from the body of prayer have been blen

The prayers of holy men are ever streaming up to God, as fragrant as the richest incense. And God, in many ways, is speaking to us, declaring His wealth and our impoverishment: “I am the Maker of all things; the wealth and glory are Mine

Nevertheless, we can have all that God has for us.

We can do all things by God’s aid, and we can have the whole of His aid by asking. This is no figment of the imagination, no idle dream, no vain fancy.
The Gospel, in its success and power, depen

and refined and intermixed by labor and beating, the fire is needed to unloose the incense and make its fragrance rise to the throne of God. The spirit and life of the incense is created by the fire that consumes. Without this fire, prayer has no spirit. Like dead spices, it is for corruption and worms.
The casual, intermittent prayer is never bathed in this divine fire. This haphazard way of praying lacks the earnestness that lays hold of God and is determined not to let Him go until the blessing comes. (See Genesis 32:26.) “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17), counseled the great apostle. That is the habit that drives prayer right into the mortar that holds the building stones together. “You can do more than pray after you have prayed,” said the godly Dr. A. J. Gordon, “but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.” The story of every great Christian achievement is the history of answered prayer.
Alexander Whyte wrote,

dispensations of God depend on man’s ability to pray. And yet, conscious as we are of the importance of prayer, of its vital importance, we let the hours pass away as a blank. Fénelon, a French prelate and writer of the late 1600s and early 1700s, has said,
Of all the duties enjoined by Christianity, none is more essential and yet more neglected than prayer. Most people consider the exercise a fatiguing ceremony, which they are justified in abridging as much as possible. Even those whose profession or fears lead them to pray, pray with such languor and wanderings of mind that their prayers, far from drawing down blessings, only increase their condemnation.
This is the way in which many, if not all, of us act about prayer; yet, in the end, we will only lament in death the irreparable loss that we have laid upon ourselves. T