Page 7 - Audacity Edition 2

James Duncan, preaching with great unction and power was asked what

the secret of such powerful preaching was. "The secret," he said, was

"thirteen hours of consecutive prayer." When asked the secret of his spiri-

tual power, Charles Spurgeon said: "Knee work! Knee work!" Livingston

of Shotts, on two different occasions, preached with such power that in

each service 500 were converted. Both sermons were preceded by a night

of prayer. Charles Finney, after spending a day in the woods in prayer and

fasting, preached that night to a phenomenally irreligious congregation.

The sermon was accompanied by such divine power that the whole con-

gregation, except one man, fell prostrate upon the floor, and voiced their

agony under conviction of sin, in such loud outcries that the preacher was

forced to stop.

Of "Uncle" John Vassar, the Tract Society colporteur, his pastor said: "He

absolutely prayed day and night—prayed about everything, prayed for al-

most everything, prayed with almost everybody he met. "He prayed when

he went out and when he came in. He prayed before every religious ser-

vice, and then prayed all the way through it. I have occupied the same

room with him night after night and rarely went to sleep without hearing

him in prayer, or awoke without finding him in prayer." Every time we

close our prayer "In the name of the Lord." We invoke the totality of His

revelation to us, all His attributes and all His omnipotence. We call upon

Him as our Priest, our Mediator, our Prophet, our Redeemer, our Savior,

and our All in all.

Prayer is conversation with God; the intercourse of the soul with God, not

in contemplation or meditation, but in direct address to him. Prayer may

be oral or mental, occasional or constant, ejaculatory or formal. It is

“beseeching the Lord" (Exodus 32:11); "pouring out the soul before the

Lord" (1 Samuel 1:15); "praying and crying to heaven" (2 Chronicles 32:20);

"seeking God and making supplication" (Job 8:5); "drawing near to

God" (Psalm 73:28); "bowing the knees" Ephesians 3:14. Prayer has as foun-

dation a belief in the personality of God, his ability and willingness to hold

intercourse with us, his personal control of all things and of all his crea-

tures and all their actions. Prayer is a request or petition for mercies; or it is

"an offering-up of our desires to God, for things agreeable to His will.