THE PRAYER OF FAITH James 5:15,16: The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up . . . The Effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Jude 20: Praying in the Holy Ghost.

The prayer of faith is a specific kind of prayer distinctively presented in the Scriptures, and so denominated, because it is an inevitable manifestation of the gift of faith.

The apostle James, in giving inspired instruction as to the method of procedure for the miraculous healing of the sick, says, The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and then elucidates what constitutes such prayer by renaming it effectual, fervent prayer, and by presenting the praying of Elijah as a specimen of it. There has been in all ages of the Church, and there is now, a current belief, well supported by the warrant of Scripture and of Christian experience, in a kind of prayer styled prevailing prayer, which brings to pass results that prayer, in its ordinary offices, does not, and the vital factor in such prayer is the extraordinary faith which originates and accompanies it. The prayer of faith being a thing so peculiarly of its own kind in the realm of the spiritual experiences of faith, an extended treatment of it is essential to making intelligible the whole life of faith. Several discriminations respecting the prayer of faith are necessary.

I. The prayer of faith is a work of the Holy Ghost.

It is one of the offices of the Holy Spirit to inspire in the hearts of believers prevailing prayer. Romans 8:26: We know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for [in] us with groanings which can not be uttered. It is by the agency of the Holy Spirit alone that any soul is spiritually empowered to offer effectual, fervent prayer. There is a supplication in the spirit and a praying in the Holy Ghost, as such. Both the Authorized Version and the New Revision fail to convey the true meaning of the original in James 5:16. The Authorized Version reads: The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. The word fervent is superfluous, and the word effectual makes the sentence mere tautology, saying no more than that an effectual prayer is effectual.

Neither word is found in, nor suggested by, the original. The New Revision gives it thus: The supplication of a righteous man availeth much, which is weaker still, and simply translates the word deesis supplication or prayer without any rendering whatever of the attached participle in the original. The original reads: The prayer (deesis) of a righteous man, being inenergized (energeo), avails much; that is, prayer inwrought and empowered by the Holy Ghost in the soul of a righteous man avails much becomes prevailing, Such prayer as one has said, is an inner prayer framed within our prayer; a divine voice within our voice of supplication; God offering to himself the petitions we desire of him. The order in which the Holy Spirit works in the soul the prayer of faith is clearly revealed. First, he illuminates it, helping its spiritual inapprehension respecting what it ought to pray for beyond the sphere of gracious blessings. The righteous man knows that he ought to pray for wisdom, strength, comfort, etc., for these and like blessings are promised to him; but whether he ought to pray for recovery from sickness, or for deliverance from temporal ills, or for some other supernatural results, he does not know. But when he should pray for these things the Holy Spirit begins to reveal them to him as allowable, and that it is the will of God to grant them, so that he is able to pray not as hitherto, If it be thy will, but in the full persuasion that it is Gods will; for the Spirit now maketh intercession for him according to the will of God.

Then, accompanying this illumination, there springs up in the soul an insatiable desire for these things which the soul would not hitherto ardently desire, lest it might not maintain its submissiveness to Gods will. But now the unequivocal assurance by the Holy Spirit that it is his will to do these things for it makes It break out in strong desire.

It groans, not in agony, not in doubt, not in uncertainty, but in heartlongings.

This groaning which enters into the experience of prevailing prayer is a depth of desire which transcends utterance, and which the most impassioned vocal supplication could but faintly express. Simultaneously with the movement of the Holy Ghost, which brings this illumination and mighty desire, there comes an assurance of faith, so as that the soul knows it has the petitions it desires of him; it rests implicitly, awaiting the realization of the things prayed for. Those who have found wrought in them the prayer of faith by the Holy Ghost will easily recognize its genesis as here delineated. The heart actuated by prayer as the immediate gift of the Holy Ghost is in the most exalted and empowered state possible in the body. It burns in a threefold flame of divine illumination, holy desire, and fervent anticipation. When this spirit of prayer seizes the soul, whether in the hush of the night watches, in the solitudes of the closet, or in the public walks of life, it irresistibly carries its suit.

Such a frame of prayer is not at our command. We can not lift ourselves into it by any dint of effort or protracted reflection. It comes upon devout souls by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit, in his office of inspiring prevailing prayer, is no doubt now, as ever, in continuous operation upon the hearts of believers. There are as mighty men of prayer among Gods people today as ever heretofore, those of whom Elijah was but the prototype, yet unsuspected and unrecognized as being the Lords special agents for the operation of his gracious and providential plans. But while there are many today who are occasionally or continuously baptized with this spirit of prayer, there is a promised prayer-Pentecost to visit the Church as prophetically discerned and proclaimed by Zechariah when there was disclosed to him, under the spirit of inspiration, the divine purpose, saying:

I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplication.

When that outpouring of the Holy Spirit shall come upon Zion, as come it will, ushering in the grand Pentecostal era of supplication, then shall not a few only, but the whole Church pray in the Holy Ghost.

II. The prayer of faith invariably succeeds.

Success in prayer is more than access in prayer. Access is conscious audience with God; success is getting what you ask for. Paul had access to God when he prayed in repeated supplication for the healing of his body in the removal of the thorn in the flesh; but his prayer did not have success.

The thorn was not removed; the cure was not granted; and simply because he did not offer the prayer of faith for it, and his lack of faith arose from his having no inwrought persuasion that it was the will of God that he should be healed. As access in prayer is a conscious, blessed experience, so also is success in prayer; it is a conscious, indubitable persuasion that the thing asked for is granted. When the saintly Fletcher of Madeley was lying in the last stages of consumption, and his condition was pronounced hopeless, John Wesley visited him, fell upon his knees at his bedside, and began to pray for his recovery. He had uttered only a few petitions when he sprang to his feet, and exclaimed: He shall not die, but shall live and declare the works of the Lord. Wesley knew he had succeeded. Fletcher recovered, and lived eight years to do the most effective work of his long and useful life. The prayer of faith does avail much. It brings to pass much that is not possible to prayer in its ordinary exercise. Prayer, in its usual offices, avails for all that is essential to spiritual life, growth in grace, and the ordinary blessing of Providence, but does not avail for special interventions in behalf of souls and the Church.

These results are only possible to inspirational prayer, or prayer in the Holy Ghost, which is distinctively the prayer of faith. The Tyndale prayer-test, insisted on a few years since, was unscientific and unreasonable, inasmuch as it proposed that any company of righteous persons who might choose should go into the ward of a hospital and pray for the recovery of a hopelessly sick patient, and, if immediate recovery should ensue, it would demonstrate the efficacy of prayer for results beyond the ordinary course of nature. In that proposition, however, there was not a single condition upon which the Bible teaches that God will heal the sick in answer to prayer. To have been a proposition compassing the Scriptural doctrine of prayer for supernatural results, it should have allowed that the suppliants must be a company of devout persons, consciously persuaded that it was the will of God to heal that patient, and believing that he would do it in answer to their prayers; or, in other words, it ought to have been a challenge to some person or persons who were consciously endowed with the gift of prayer for the healing of that patient. Inasmuch as it is not promised in Gods Word that prayer, in its ordinary office, shall accomplish such supernatural results, but only prayer as a specific endowment of the Holy Ghost, the socalled test was no test at all.

The prayer of faith always succeeds. A most touching spectacle of prayer occurred seven years since when, for almost three months, all Christendom was on its knees before God in supplication for the recovery of President Garfield. Yet he did not recover, and many good people began to say: What profit is it that we pray unto Him? And the skeptics said: Prayer is a failure, as we have always held. Was all that prayer useless? No; the spirit of it was eminently proper and Scriptural. The people did as they should have done; they, with prayer and thanksgiving, let their requests be made known unto God. They did say in their closets, at their family altars, and from their sanctuaries: If it be thy will, let our Chief Magistrate live. All the prayer offered in that spirit was useful, but it was not successful; it did not avail for the Presidents recovery. And why? Because in all the prayers prayed no petitioner offered the prayer of faith. No one had the persuasion it would be done; no one apprehended that it was the will of God that it should be done.

Every one said: If it be thy will. But faith never can build on a contingency, or an if; its ground is always a divine assurance, given either by the Word or the Holy Spirit of God. Had there come into the heart of the most ignorant, obscure freedman, who was a child of God, the assurance that it was the will of God to restore President Garfield, if he would believe, that humble soul might have, and doubtless would have, prayed the prayer of faith, and according to his supplication it would have been done unto him.

For the prayer of faith never fails; it prospers in the thing whereunto it is sent.

Its answer is specific in kind in respect to the asking, while in degree most frequently it is above that which we think or ask. Elijah asked for rain; it came not in showers, however, but in torrents. Hannah asked for a son; he was given, but was a mighty prophet as well. Hezekiah plead for life; it was given, not in a temporary respite from death, but in fifteen years of regal life. The simplicity of the prayer of faith, in its inception compared with its effectiveness, is marvelous. Said a man to one noted for the results of his praying: I suppose you struggle a great deal in prayer. O no, he replied, I scarcely know when I pray. When I desire any thing of the Lord I just look up to him in my soul and say, Thou wilt do it, and feel that it will be done.

When the soul is given the spirit of prevailing prayer there is fulfilled the promise ( Isaiah 65:24), And it shall come to pass [in the dispensation of the Holy Ghost] that before they call I will answer; and while they are yet speaking I will hear; that is, the Holy Spirit shall inbreathe a spirit of prayer so quickly as that the soul shall receive the thing desired before the petition for it can be framed into words, and that while it is putting it in words God will be doing for it the thing desired.

It is no uncommon experience for a devout heart just to think of something it would have of the Lord, and while forming the purpose to ask it of the Lord, to be made conscious that it is granted, and the succeeding prayer for it to become rather praise that it shall be done. Praise the Lord, O my soul!

The phenomenal manifestations of impassioned utterance, vehement gesticulation, or ecstatic emotions may attend or not the prayer of faith, but are no essential part of its power. When Elijah opened the windows of heaven there was no demonstration, only a prostrate, voiceless form, and but for the apostle Jamess allusion to the wonderful event we should not have known that he prayed at all. The prayer of faith enters the heart by the inspiration of the Almighty, and never fails to rise as high as its source in almighty results. The prayer of faith being itself supernatural, what wonder is it that it accomplishes supernatural results.

III. The prayer of faith is possible only on certain conditions of heart. 1 . He who offers it must be righteous. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. God heareth not sinners, but if any man be a worshiper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. God will not trust the gift of prevailing prayer with those who are discreditable in character or superficial in piety. The great men of prayer, from Abraham to William Taylor, have been godly, righteous men.

Indeed, a consciousness of being right with God is an indispensable qualification for successful prayer at all. Hence the apostle says:

Whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things which are pleasing in his sight.

If religious character is essential on the ordinary plane of prayer, how much more vital in the higher altitudes of supplication? It is only holy men whom God calls up into the mount alone with himself. Peter, James, and John were taken up by the Master to the heights of Tabor to learn the lesson of prevailing prayer, because spiritually eligible for it. A low state of Christian experience and a life of imperfect devotion to God disqualify us completely for becoming recipients of the gift of prayer. Not all who have been noted for piety have been called to be pre-eminent in prayer, but none have been noted for prayer who had not been pre-eminent for piety. 2 . He who offers the prayer of faith must have faith in prayer. It is possible for one to be righteous and yet lack a profound faith in prayer itself. There are good men who have no adequate apprehension of the vital relation prayer has to Gods plans and purposes; who are not impressed with its immense worth; who think of it as a mere exercise, useful to the individual, rather than being a principle of the divine government; a law by which God has chosen to effect certain results. Hence they are skeptical of prayer as a real power, and appreciate it only as a gracious movement of the heart toward God. Now, God never bestows, even upon a righteous man, the power of prevailing prayer, who, for any cause, is incredulous respecting the largest possibilities of prayer as being at present available. Faith in prayer is indispensable to praying in faith. The little child that is able to comprehend the simple precepts and promises of Gods Word in respect to prayer may have a faith in prayer which will render it eligible to offer, as many a child has done, the prayer of faith. Indeed, these things are hidden from the wise and prudent, and are revealed unto babes. So the humble go on believing in prayer, and praying, believing, and see wonderful things, while the opinionated, skeptical, wise, good people go on praying, knowing none of these things in respect to prayer. 3 . He who offers the prayer of faith must have the spirit of prayer. The habit of prayer, says Mr. Spurgeon truly, is good, but the spirit of prayer is better. This comprises an inclination to pray; a fondness for prayer; a continuous drawing out of the soul in prayer; so that, as one has said, I am not fifteen minutes without supplication rising in my soul to God. It is taking every thing to God in prayer, the soul spontaneously looking to God in care, duty, grief, service. One who has come into the spirit of holy communion with God will be fitted for the descent of the power of prevailing prayer upon him when God may choose to confer it upon him, as he doubtless will, at some times and in some measure. We do not believe any one can long live in the practice and spirit of prayer without sooner or later having imparted to his soul the ability to offer prevailing prayer for results which are beyond the reach of prayer as a gracious exercise. Here is the profession of faith which all devout hearts make that have been baptized with the spirit of prayer.

This is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask any thing according to his will he heareth us; and if we know that he hears us, whatsoever we ask we know we have the petitions that we desired of him.

Having such a spirit of prayer, the soul awaits in exultant expectation for God to do for it exceeding abundantly above all it now thinks or asks. That is, that God will both enlarge its asking and its receiving as well. This spirit of prayer is the only soil in which God will plant the gift of faith whence springs the prayer of faith.