Answers to Prayer
Chapter 11
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Living victorious and successful Christian lives is the all-important thing, and we can do it only one I way—through the Spirit of God resting upon us and dwelling in us.
The apostle Paul, writing to the Ephesians for whose salvation he had labored so diligently, caught their attention by stressing the kind of prayer he did for them. "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ... that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God" (Ephesians 3:14-19).
Those few lines must have been a wonderful encouragement to the Christians at Ephesus as they realized that Paul had been praying for the Holy Spirit to strengthen them in a special way. Only then could they live victorious Christian lives in this fallen world.
To understand the impact that Paul's prayer had on them we must remember that the Ephesians had at one time been anything but model individuals. Ephesians 2:1, 2 declared of them, "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.
A number of the Ephesians had even been deeply involved in the supernatural. Acts 19:19 tells us, "Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver."
Convicted by the Holy Spirit, these practitioners of the occult burned manuscripts worth a fortune and yielded their lives to Christ. I can imagine that Paul and his 12 companions (mentioned at the beginning of the chapter) must have done some serious praying for these men and women.
I believe that they prayed both for God to appropriate the merits of the blood Christ shed at Calvary, and for the Spirit of God to surround each one with a divine atmosphere of peace and spiritual light. And it could well be that they asked God to have the Holy Spirit overpower and nullify the power of sin, the power of death, and the power of separation from God in each believer's life. Surely Paul and his friends must have made this kind of prayer daily.
Fantastic conversions took place among the Ephesians, and I am persuaded by the Word of God that similar and far more numerous conversions will happen when God's people intercede with God for others with a faith as determined as that Paul and his friends had.
In 1946, after the Holy Spirit converted me from spiritualism to Christianity, the Epistle to the Ephesians became a great source of encouragement to me especially when I realized what Paul's prayer had accomplished among those who had been involved in the occult. Ephesians 2:4-7 has never failed to amaze me. "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) ... that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness toward us, through Christ Jesus." We will be the demonstration and showcase before the rest of the universe of His forgiveness and ability to transform rebellious sinners.
The Spirit of God strengthened the early Christians, enabling them to become something they otherwise could not. It alone empowered them to live successful Christian lives. And according to the apostle John, heaven blessed their prayer life, the secret of their victorious Christianity. "Whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight" (1 John 3:22). They were able to keep His commandments because their prayer life opened up to them the power of the Holy Spirit, as we witness over and over in the New Testament.
Acts 3 records how Peter and John visited the Temple in Jerusalem at the daily hour of prayer. As they approached one of the gates, a lame beggar stopped them and asked them for money. "Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk" (verse 6). The Bible states that the crippled man's feet and ankles received healing and strength, and he began to leap and praise God.
It is my firm conviction that God will again demonstrate such miracles among His people, but right now we are still in the process of acquiring genuine biblical faith. Such faith is a must before He can honor our prayers as He did the disciples and other early Christians. Such biblical faith consists of three elements:
Belief in God.
Trust in God.
Loyalty to God.
Jesus—Lord of the Impossible
Shortly after the publication of my first book on intercessory prayer, a woman wrote, "I have a son that needs the kind of praying that you talked about in your book. I would like very much to talk to you about him, if you would be kind enough to send me your phone number. It would be so much easier to tell you about his problem over the phone. Please help me! A sister in Christ."
A few days later I received a phone call from her. She explained that she and her husband had a 32-year-old son named Henry who by the age of 20 had apparently lost almost all his mental faculties because of drug use. Since then he had been unable to take care of him-self. He would sit in a chair for as long as three hours at a time, silently smoking and staring at a wall. Sometimes Henry's eyes would follow his mother as she cooked or moved around the kitchen. The son had no sense of day or night, and when he did sleep, it was only for short periods of time. Occasionally he would slap himself with great force in the face or on his arms or legs until he turned black and blue.
When told not to hurt himself, Henry would explode into rage and insist that no one should speak to him. He had let his hair grow down to the middle of his back, refusing to allow anyone to cut it. The man seemed unable to recognize even his parents, and his speech was unintelligible. At times he would talk to himself in a series of grunts. His parents considered his condition hopeless.
After I had listened to Mrs. Harvey (not her real name) for about 20 minutes, I began to wonder why she was asking me for help in a situation that appeared even beyond the aid of medical science. Then I realized that it wasn't me that mattered here, but God. The woman was trying to reach out to God through me. Perhaps the Lord could use me to lead her to the foly Spirit and His life-giving power. Perhaps the Holy Spirit was waiting to recreate the son's mental faculties, thereby exalting Christ and strengthening the faith of many.
Silently I asked God to bless my mind with what I should say to her. After conversing with her awhile, I assured her that I would take Henry's case to heart. I would place his name on my prayer list and pray for him in a special way. Also I requested that she periodically keep me posted on his condition.
Time went by, and one day I received a letter from her telling me that Henry was beginning to improve. His speech had become clearer, and—to his parents' surprise he had asked his mother to cut his hair for the first time in 16 years. Mrs. Harvey was elated, and she stated that her and her husband's faith was growing stronger as they saw the Spirit of God blessing their son's life.
Offering my own thanksgiving to God, I pointed her to biblical incidents in which the Lord had done wonderful things for His people.
A few months later Henry decided to stop smoking. When he announced his intention, his mother figured that because he had been a chain smoker for so many years, he would be unable to quit. She had known too many people who had tried and failed.
But to his parents' astonishment, Henry never touched a cigarette again. Mrs. Harvey waited a month before writing me about it. For the next six or seven months she sent me a monthly report, and to my joy she and her husband gave God all the credit for all the changes in their son's life. Yet one thing still bothered her-God wasn't restoring his mind as they had hoped for. One additional letter arrived. In it Mrs. Harvey admitted that her faith in God's power to help them was beginning to waver. Naturally I prayed that her faith would not fail her. When we seek a special blessing from God, the Bible says, "Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord" (James 1:6, 7).
About 11:00 in the evening not more than 10 days later Mrs. Harvey called me. She could barely talk because of crying. With a quick silent prayer for help, I managed to calm her down to the point where I could make out what she was saying. It seemed that Henry had unexpectedly become violent, throwing chairs through the windows and threatening to beat up his father. They had had to call the sheriff's department and have the son taken to a mental institution. She informed me that she had lost all hope of her son ever getting better. "I am sorry to tell you this," she said, "but I have lost faith in the power of prayer, and will no longer trouble God with my needs.
Telling her not to give up, I said that I would redouble my intercessions for her son. I believed that his violent reaction had been brought on by the forces of darkness. They were trying to get us to quit praying for Henry. Before she hung up I left her with a few verses of Scripture to think about.
It wasn't many days later that she called again. This time her voice vibrated with happiness as she praised God for a mighty miracle of divine grace. Henry was back home healthy both in mind and body. Although he could remember nothing that had taken place during the past 12 years, he was out visiting old friends, neighbors, and relatives with his father.
When I asked Mrs. Harvey how it had happened, she said her son had awakened one morning at the mental institution feeling perfectly well. The doctors found him mentally alert, and after a day or two phoned his parents to come get their wonderfully transformed son.
"Glory to God in the highest!" I shouted over the phone, and rejoiced with her over how God still shows His love for us.
