THE CONDITIONS OF POWER IN PRAYER – Charles Spurgeon

THE CONDITIONS OF POWER IN PRAYER

“And whatever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment, That we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us commandment. And he that keeps His commandment dwells in Him, and He in him. And hereby we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit which He has given us.” 1 John 3:22-24.

Introduction: The Importance of Prayer

I thought of addressing you this morning upon the importance of prayer and earnestly desired to stir you up to pray for me and for the Lord’s work in this place. Truly, I do not think I could have chosen a weightier subject, or one that weighs more heavily upon my soul. If I were only allowed to offer one request to you, it would be this—“Brothers and sisters, pray for us.” What use can our ministry be without the divine blessing, and how can we expect that blessing unless it is sought by the Church of God? I would say it even with tears, “Brethren, pray for us.” Do not restrain prayer—instead, be abundant in intercession, for only in this way can our prosperity as a church be increased or even continued.

The Hindrance to Effective Prayer

But then, the question occurred to me—what if there is something in the church that could prevent our prayers from being successful? This is an important question and one which ought to be considered earnestly even before we exhort you to intercession. As we have already learned from the first chapter of Isaiah, the prayers of an unholy people will soon become abominations to God. “When you spread forth your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear.” Churches can fall into such a state that their devotions become an iniquity. “Even the solemn meeting” will become weariness unto the Lord. There may be evils in the heart of any one of us that may render it impossible for God, in consistency with His character, to regard our intercessions.

If we regard iniquity in our hearts, the Lord will not hear us. According to our text, there are certain things essential to power in prayer. God will hear all true prayers, but there are conditions that we must meet if we are to prevail habitually with God in prayer. The text tells us, “Whatever we ask we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.”

The Essentials of Power in Prayer

Now, the subject of consideration is the essentials to power in prayer—what we must do, what we must be, and what we must have, if we are to prevail with God in prayer on a continual basis. Let us learn how to become Elijahs and Jacobs. I will begin, first, by considering the essentials of power in prayer.

Obedience to God’s Commandments

We must make a few distinctions at the outset. There is a great difference between the prayer of a soul that is seeking mercy and the prayer of a saved man. I would say to every person present, whatever his character, that if you sincerely seek mercy from God through Jesus Christ, you will receive it. Whatever may have been your previous life, if you now penitently seek Jehovah’s face through the appointed Mediator, He will be found of you. If the Holy Spirit has taught you to pray, hesitate no longer but hasten to the cross and rest your guilty soul on Jesus.

However, when speaking to those who are saved, I must emphasize that you are now a child of God and are under a special discipline unique to the regenerated family. In that discipline, answers to prayer occupy a significant position. There are mercies, blessings, comforts, and favors that render your life useful, happy, and honorable. And these will be given to you unconditionally, as they are covenant blessings.

But there are other blessings that God will either give or withhold depending on your obedience to His commandments. The invitation to seek mercy is addressed to those with no qualifications except their need. But once you are inside the family of God as saved men and women, the other blessings are conditional. If you neglect the conditions for these blessings, your heavenly Father may withhold them from you.

A Parental Analogy

To illustrate this, consider a hungry person at your door who asks for bread. You will give it to him regardless of his character. You will also provide food for your child, no matter his behavior, as a father will not deny his child anything necessary for life. But there are many other things your child may desire that you will only give him if he is obedient. Similarly, God’s paternal government works in the same way.

God will give us what we ask if we keep His commandments, but if we reject His government, He will reject our prayers. As a father would with a disobedient child, God may say, “You have forsaken Me, and therefore I will not deliver you.”

Child-like Obedience and Reverence

To have power in prayer, we must first possess child-like obedience. We are told, “Whatever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments.” Without this obedience, the Lord may reject our prayers as He did with the disobedient people of Israel, saying, “Go and cry unto the gods which you have chosen.”

Moreover, another essential to victorious prayer is child-like reverence. We must do what is pleasing in His sight. Just as a good child obeys without questioning the wisdom of the father’s commands, so we must be obedient to God without doubting His instructions. God will not listen to those who are self-willed and who wish to have their own way rather than His.

Trust in God’s Word

Next, we must have child-like trust. The text tells us, “We should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ.” Faith in God is essential to effective prayer. If we lack faith, we will not be heard. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that gives to all men liberally…but let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.” Without faith, we cannot expect to be heard.

Love for God and One Another

Another essential element is child-like love. The commandment we are given is to “love one another as He gave us commandment.” Love for God and love for one another are central to prayer. A child who does not love his father or his siblings will not receive his father’s promises. Similarly, a person who does not love God or his fellow man cannot expect to have power in prayer.

Dwelling in God

We must also have child-like ways, as the text suggests: “He that keeps His commandments dwells in Him, and He in him.” This means we must make God our dwelling place. If we are familiar with God’s ways and love His house, then our prayers will have power. As the child who loves home and his parents is the one whose requests are honored, so will it be with those who love God and keep His commandments.

Conclusion: A Child-like Spirit

Finally, we must have a child-like spirit. “Hereby we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit which He has given us.” The Holy Spirit is essential to true communion with God and to the power of our prayers. Only when we are truly aligned with God’s will, through obedience, reverence, trust, love, and the indwelling of His Spirit, can we expect our prayers to prevail with God.

In summary, to have power in prayer, we must possess a child-like spirit that is obedient, reverent, trusting, loving, and aligned with God’s will. As we do so, we will find that God listens to our prayers and answers them according to His perfect will.

THE SPIRIT OF ADOPTION AND THE CONDITIONS FOR PREVAILING PRAYER

What is this but the Spirit of adoption—the Spirit which rules in all the children of God? The willful, who think, feel, and act differently from God, must not expect that God will come around to their way of thinking, feeling, and acting. The selfish, who are actuated by pride, and the slothful, who are driven by the love of ease, must not expect that God will indulge them. If the Holy Spirit rules in us, He will subordinate our nature to His own sway. Then, the prayers that spring from our renewed hearts will align with the will of God, and such prayers will naturally be heard.

No parent would think of listening to a willful child who says, “I know my father does not wish me to have this, but I will have it.” Why, as a man, you would not allow such a defiance from an upstart youngster. Shall God grant us what we ask when it is contrary to His holy mind? It must not be! Such a possibility is inconceivable. The same mind must be in us as is in Christ Jesus, and then we will be able to say, “I know that You hear me always.”

THE PREVALENCE OF ESSENTIALS IN PRAYER

Next, we turn our attention to the prevalence of these essential things. If they are in us and abound, our prayers cannot be barren or unprofitable. First, if we have faith in God, there is no question about God hearing our prayer. If we can plead, in faith, the name and blood of Jesus, we must obtain answers of peace. But a thousand arguments may arise. What if these prayers concern the laws of nature, and the scientific community stands against us? What of that? I will glory in giving these scientific men scope enough—I had almost said rope enough.

I do not know of any prayer worth praying which does not come into contact with some natural law, and yet I believe in prayers being heard. It is said that God will not change the laws of nature for us, and I reply, “Whoever said He would!” The Lord has ways of answering our prayers irrespective of the working of miracles or suspending laws. He used to hear prayer by miracle, but that seems a rougher way of achieving His purpose—it is like stopping a vast machine for a small result. God knows how to accomplish His ends and hear our prayers by secret means. Perhaps there are other forces and laws that He has arranged to bring into action just at times when prayer also acts, for laws just as fixed and forces just as natural as those which our learned theorizers have discovered.

The wisest men know not all the laws which govern the universe, nor even a tenth of them. We believe that the prayers of Christians are a part of the machinery of providence, cogs in the great wheel of destiny. When God leads His children to pray, He has already set in motion a wheel that is to produce the result prayed for, and the prayers offered are moving as part of that wheel. If there is but faith in God, God must either cease to be, or cease to be true, or else He must hear prayer.

THE POWER OF FAITH AND LOVE IN PRAYER

The verse before the text says, “If our heart condemns us not, then have we confidence toward God; and whatever we ask, we receive of Him.” He who has a clear conscience comes to God with confidence, and that confidence of faith ensures him the answer to his prayer. Childlike confidence makes us pray in a way that no one else can. It leads us to pray for great things we would never have asked for otherwise, and for small things that many people are too afraid to ask for, because they have not yet felt toward God the confidence of children.

I have often said that it takes more confidence in God to pray to Him about a little thing than about great things. We tend to think that our great things are worthy of God’s attention, though in reality, they are little enough to Him. We also imagine that our little things are too trivial to bring before Him, but we should know that what may seem insignificant to us can be very significant to God.

Think of your little boy crying bitterly because of a splinter in his finger. It might be a small thing, but to him, it is of great concern. As a father, you wouldn’t disregard it because it’s small. God, our Father, is a good father who pities us as fathers pity their children. He knows the number of the stars, yet He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. The same God who kindles the sun has said, “I will not quench the smoking flax.” If you have confidence in God, you will bring both your great and little concerns to Him, and He will never disappoint you.

THE IMPORTANCE OF LOVE AND OBEDIENCE IN PRAYER

Faith must succeed, but love must succeed as well. As we have already seen, the man who loves, in the Christian sense, is in accord with God. If you confine your love to your own family, you cannot expect God to do so, and prayers narrowed within that circle will be disregarded by Him. If a man loves only himself and hopes for the failure of others to gain advantage, he certainly cannot expect God to agree with such selfishness.

But if a man has the heart to embrace all of God’s creation in his affection, while still praying especially for the household of faith, his prayers will be aligned with God’s will. His love and God’s goodness will run side by side. Though God’s love is like a mighty rolling river, and his is like a trickling brook, they both run in the same direction, and will eventually meet at the same end. God always hears the prayers of a loving man because those prayers reflect His own decrees.

Moreover, the man of obedience is the one whom God will hear because his obedient heart leads him to pray humbly and with submission. This person’s prayers are in harmony with God’s will. When the man of obedient heart prays, his prayers are like prophecies. He is asking for exactly what God intends. How can a prayer shot from such a bow ever fail to reach its target?

THE SPIRIT OF GOD AND THE CONDITION FOR SUCCESS IN PRAYER

Again, the man who lives in fellowship with God will assuredly prevail in prayer because, if he dwells in God and God dwells in him, he will desire what God desires. The believer in communion with the Lord desires the good of mankind, the glory of Christ, the prosperity of the church, and holiness for himself—all desires that align with God’s will.

Even if he sometimes has a desire that is not according to God’s will, it is the result of ignorance, for man is not perfect and will err. But the believer provides for this defect by adding the following request to his prayer: “Lord, if I have asked for anything that is not in Your will, please do not regard it, but instead, in Your infinite love, give me something better than I can ask for.”

How can such a prayer fail? The Lord looks out of the windows of heaven and sees such a prayer coming to Him, and He receives it. Just as Noah welcomed the dove into the ark, God welcomes that prayer into His bosom. God says, “You came from My bosom, and I welcome you back. My Spirit composed you, and therefore, I will answer you.”

THE SPIRIT IN THE BELIEVER

Our text speaks of the Christian as being filled with God’s Spirit—“We know that He abides in us, by the Spirit which He has given us.” Who knows the mind of a man but the spirit of a man? Similarly, who knows the things of God but the Spirit of God? If the Spirit of God dwells in us, He tells us what God’s mind is and makes intercession for us according to His will.

It is sometimes imagined that those who have prevalence in prayer can pray for whatever they like, but anyone who has this privilege will tell you that this is not the case. The Spirit of God gives us wisdom, discretion, and judgment. It is the Spirit who makes intercession in the saints according to God’s will.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION FOR THE CHURCH

Now, let us apply these principles practically. Do we have the essentials for success in prayer as a church? Do we believe in the name of Jesus Christ? I believe we do, though much must be confessed about the weakness of our faith. Next, are we full of love for God and one another? Do we love one another as we should? If there is a lack of love in the church, we cannot expect our prayers to be heard. God will not bless a community that does not love itself.

Do we do what is pleasing in God’s sight? Have we been doing what we would like Jesus to see in our lives? We cannot expect answers to prayer if we are not living in a way that honors God.

Finally, do we dwell in God? Are we aware of God’s presence throughout the day, not just in the morning and night? Are we living as though we are always in His sight? If we are not living in God, we cannot expect prosperity.

Lastly, are we truly being guided by the Spirit of God? If we are not, we must seek His guidance, as He is the source of our power in prayer.

CONCLUSION

God grant us grace as a church to overcome evil and stand firm, to the praise of the glory of His grace. Let the wheat overpower the weeds, and may we all walk in the strength of His Spirit, striving for His will in all things.

The Lord bless you, and be with you evermore. Amen.

Portion of Scripture Read Before Sermon:
1 John 3; Isaiah 1:10-20
Charles Spurgeon