S. D. Gordon (How to Pray~Baker Book House)

Unexplained Things

Prayer does things. It gets results. They are things that are needed. The results help. They help decidedly. They ease the tug of life. They cushion the jagged edges to our touch. They start a fresh rhythm in our hearts.

It would seem that in our day, peculiarly, there is a demand for results. And there is unstinted admiration for results. The crowd actually worships the man who actually gets results. They're inclined to forget how he got them. The results catch and hold them. The machine that actually turns out the stuff, the crowd clamors for that. Its sales grow by leaps and bounds.

Now, prayer actually gets results. It loosens out a spirit current, and the results come at the other end. In the electric powerhouse you move a few hands over, a little bit. And instantly a dark building is flooded with light, hundreds of wheels begin to revolve, scores of trolleys and trams start in motion, maybe, most likely, many miles away. You do not see it all, but You know it's happening.

So, you can turn the spirit current of prayer on, and as certainly get results, as tangible, and of far more significance and inf1uence.

The grip of vicious habit, holding some man in relentless embrace, is loosed and broken. The money needed to meet some need, some emergency, comes to hand. The touch of health and strength comes to the bedridden man.

That blind alley proves to have a gate at the other end after all. Circumstances shift and change. Hearts soften. Stubborn wills bend. Opposition ceases. Nothing can resist the power of that spirit current when used in accordance with the principle that controls it.

Yet you can’t explain how the thing is done. I ate some whole wheat porridge for breakfast this morning. Some of it turns into bone, some into hair, some into fingernails, some into hardened muscle, and some into soft padding of flesh. Now, how can that be, the same stuff turning off into such totally different substances?

I asked a physician friend that question one day. He stands high in the medical world, known internationally, with honorary professional relations in most European medical associations. He said that when the thing was sifted down, it could not be explained.

But that failure to explain does not bother my practical habits at mealtime. Is till eat my meals, and depend on the strength they bring to do the day’s work.

A broker in Wall Street sends a cablegram to London That is the common way of saying it. What he actually does is this. He writes a dozen words or so on a yellow bit of paper.

The messenger boy takes it to the telegraph office. The operator clicks a little machine on his table for a few minutes. Then he hangs the yellow bit of paper up on a hook. There it hangs. It does not leave his office.

Yet over in London a block of stock changes hands. Possibly a hundred thousand dollars change control. Now, how do you explain that? Can you explain it? The thoughtful answer is, "No, you cannot."

Does the electric fluid or current - is it a fluid? or what? Does it pass along the little wire cable at the bottom of the Atlantic, or through the wire?

The experts, who know most about that sort of thing, frankly say they don't know. But we do know certain laws of that electric current, certain observed sequences of action.

And as we act in accord with these laws certain results can be depended on. As a matter of simple fact billions of dollars change hands that way every week. The huge business fabric of the world is run largely that way.

A ship in mid-Atlantic breaks a shaft, or screw, or some other part of its machinery. It sends out an "S.O.S." distress signal. Another ship, maybe several hundred miles away, alters its course and comes to give what help it can.

What really takes place is this: The wireless operator, in a little, square, cooped-up corner, on an upper deck, works his clicking machine. There's a confused play of blue light, sputtering and splashing. That is all. There is no wire connection between the two ships, no connection of any kind you can see.

Yet, the man at the little clicking machine on the rescuing ship gets a message from the sputtering clicks, and the ship's course is altered. Can you explain that? But if you are on the disabled boat, worrying a bit, you have no doubt about it, when the other boat sends some reassuring word, and then heaves in sight over the horizon in the expected direction, and helps you out.

 The Working Agreement

Yet you will notice one thing: There’s a working agreement or understanding in each case. The telegraph man in New York has an understanding with the London man. The two ships at sea have an understanding about wireless codes.

A man’s digestive apparatus has a good working understanding with the rest of his body. In each case everything hangs absolutely on that understanding or working agreement.

Now, the practical thing, for the busy man, in the thick of things, to mark keenly is this: Prayer does get results. It gets things done. It is as real, as practical, as tangible, and as sure.

Here is the formula that gets results, whether with the porridge, or the S.O.S. signal, or the cable, or prayer. There must be the mutual understanding, the agreed upon arrangement. That is the fixed invariable law of action here.

Then there must be time spent in the actual communication in accord with that prearranged agreement. Then the results come. Whether breakfast, or broker’s transaction, or the distress signal, or prayer, certain known results occur.

But, but, get this straight, there must be the working agreement, and we must keep faith with that agreement, or the whole things fails.

Now, the working agreement in prayer has four items, simple, fundamental, unchangeable, just as in the digestion of food, and in the use of the electrical current.

The prayer must be in Jesus’ name. His name stands for himself; who he was, It stands for what he did when he died sacrificially on Calvary, and for that tremendous emptying of the grave the third morning after. This is the first item.

The prayer must be by a man in full touch of heart and will, of habit and life, with Jesus. This is the partnership basis. This is the second bit.

There needs to be time spent habitually with the old Book. This is the codebook, the schoolbook. It broadens the outlook, seasons the judgement, emboldens faith, trains heart and mind and tongue. This is the third bit.

And then there needs to be actual time spent in praying, as with food, and cable, and wireless call at sea. And, further, it is through the actual praying that there comes skill, the skill of simplicity, of sureness of touch, and of old confidence.

Once given that working agreement, followed intelligently and faithfully, and there is no limit to what prayer can get done.

It goes through stone walls, past locked doors, into the inner chamber, and touches the heart of the man there, bends or unbends his will, and changes his decisions.

There are exceptions. There are always exceptions or qualifications to any general statement. But in this case the exceptions are extremely, extremely, rare.

When the conditions are complied with, there is only one thing that can make an exception. And that is man’s will, an obstinate, insanely obstinate, human will. And the evidence all goes to indicate that at the very last even this is very, very rare.

An Intelligence in Nature

I said, a bit ago, that you couldn’t explain how prayer works, any more than with these other things. Yet, yet, if you dig in a bit, just a little deeper, not far, you can explain much. It is possible after all to trace the process in prayer, partly, as in these other things.

There is an intelligence in nature, in your body. The food you eat flows along the canals within your body form the central stomach reservoir out clear to the farthest ends of fingers and toes, and so on.

And as it goes a bit of this is taken up and absorbed here, and a bit of that, there. The hunger of each part reaches out and takes what it is hungry for.

Bone substances are taken hold of to feed the hunger of the bones, and so on. There is an affinity of each sort for its own sort.

There is clearly an intelligence in the body. It is seen in the natural healing of a cut; the thickening blood stops the flow, eedges of the wound give out new tissue to mend up the cut.

Or, did a little deeper yet. There is Someone back of that intelligence, the Creator. His touch is never off anybody’s body. Back of the process in digestion is intelligence, and back of the intelligence is—God.

Even so is it with the cablegram and the no-wire-connection S.O.S. signal of distress, and, and, the radio, that today puts men in touch by untold millions for speech of all sorts, and music.

There does seem to be an intelligence of a rare sort behind the current that runs along the wire, and the yet stranger currents encircling the earth.

It is a something that can carry faintest whispers and rarest music, and some things one would rather were not

carried to us.

All that is needed is instruments in tune with each other, sending and receiving. The subtle currents are there, and always have been. There surely seems to be an intelligence back of these uncanny currents. And the thoughtful man says, a Creator, the Creator, God.

When a man in New York can talk intelligently to someone in London, or indeed any of the European capitals, and be heard, and be answered by someone at the other end, surely it is not so difficult to understand about prayer.

That one may speak quietly at his bedside to our Lord Jesus, sitting just up there through the blue; that he sitting there, intently listening, can hear, and does hear, and does do something sorely needed; this seems rather the sort of thing one would expect, does it not?

For he has been down here. He has gotten tuned in to the spirit current of our lives by his generation of human experience, at least that much.

He understands things here. The one basis of all is that he and we shall really be in tune. He longs for just such communication. He has told us how to get in touch.

We simply accept him as Savior. We trust his blood to clear up the old sin core. We cultivate his friendship. We enter into partnership agreement with him. This does explain much of the process of prayer.

Tracing the Process

One Sabbath night, after service, I had gone into the anteroom off the pulpit, of an old Methodist church in Philadelphia, for my overcoat and hat.

An officer of the church, a man of fully mature years, was gathering up the evening offering. He spoke to me. The evening's talk had stirred up memories of an experience he had.

He was an inventor by profession, specializing in a certain class of mechanical contrivances. He had been asked, by a large well-known corporation, to invent a needed mechanical improvement in a popular talking machine.

But the thing needed seemed to elude him. He had worked and studied, studied and experimented, but the needed touch was still lacking. And it troubled him. He did not like to confess failure. And he didn't want to fail.

At his wife's gentle suggestion, he had kneeled at his workbench in his laboratory, and made a simple bit of special prayer for this particular thing.

And as he was praying, very quietly it came into his mind what to do, some very simple thing it seemed, yet it had not occurred to him. At once he did the thing suggested. It worked. The invention was completed.

And this quiet- mannered, years-grayed man assured me, in gentle low-toned voice, that he knew that particular invention was a direct answer to his prayer. Prayer does bring things to pass, things needed, of a very mundane, material sort.

And the process here is easy to trace. The man's bended knee, and his will bended anew in earnest prayer, opened his mind to a fresh keenness. And the Holy Spirit could, and did, suggest to his mind just what to do. The process simple.

One Sabbath morning I came out of the service, in a large Baptist church in a theater on Union Square (now Pershing Square) in Los Angeles, southern California.

A gentleman spoke to me. He was one of the officers of the church, a man a little past middle life. The morn- ing talk led him to tell me of a personal experience.

He owned a large orange ranch or plantation some little distance out. As in all that section they depended on irrigation. Some necessary repairs had been made, and so the irrigation apparatus was out of use for a time.

Now, it was being put into action again. But there had been a hitch in readjusting the irrigation water pipes. They had worked quite a while but seemed unable to overcome the obstacle. A certain pipe would not "catch" into the thread of the screw of the connecting pipe, down some distance under the surface.

They had worked over it until late Saturday night without avail. This man was active in the church life. He had duties there early on the Sabbath. He was reluctant to fail or be late. Yet the land was needing the water badly.

So, he quietly told me, he had prayed that the pipe might quickly fit into the screw, as he went out early on the Sabbath morning.

"And," he said to me, with a touch of awe in his face and voice, " it caught at once." What he had struggled over for long hours yielded at once to a touch.

He believed the prayer was the decisive factor. I believed him. I believe that it was. Prayer brings results in practical matters.

And the process here is quite plain. The Holy Spirit, the Creator Spirit, who pervades all creation, guided the hand turning the irrigation pipe, and fitted the screw into the thread of the connecting pipe. The man had asked help. And he gave it; help of the kind needed.

Jesus Does Intervene

I shall never forget an experience one evening some years ago. It was down in a summer conference, of the Southern Presbyterian Church, in the Carolina mountains.

It had been raining pretty heavily all the day. The gathering was in a sort of out-of-doors auditorium, with open sides, and nothing between the ceiling and the roof. The roof was the ceiling, so anything making a noise on the roof at once affected the hearing.

The rain had quit, and several hundred had gathered. But as the speaking began the rain began again, and got heavier, until by and by the noise on the roof was a steady hammering.

It was practically impossible to be heard, even though the voice were raised very much. It was quite a puzzling situation, to know what to do.

The only thing to do was to pray. But for what? For the rain to stop? That certainly is what we were needing just then.

But it seemed an unusual sort of thing to ask for. Maybe the surrounding farmlands needed rain. I didn't know.

So the speaking was stopped, and the suggestion com - ing to mind was made, that we bow in prayer, and ask for the rain to stop until the meeting was over.

An incredulous smile overspread the upturned faces, as we bowed. A simple bit of prayer was sent up. The "amen" was said. It was still raining quite steadily;

Before my eyes could be opened, after the "amen," a voice spoke in my inner ear. It was quite a distinct voice, and seemed to be on my left side; that is the impression of it that still remains.

Very quietly, very distinctly, and with a tone of finality, the voice said, "Suppose it don't." Those were the words, following a common colloquial form, even though grammatically inaccurate.

And at once I repeated answering words that seemed suggested to me, "It is not my prayer; it is not my faith; it is the blood of Jesus." It was all done with such swiftness.

Then I opened my eyes, and looked into a sea of upturned faces, with that same incredulous look deepening into something else, not helpful to see. It was still raining quite hard.

We sang a soft verse of a hymn, "While the rain is stopping." And as they sang I was busy trying mentally to pick up the broken thread of the talk.

Then I got so absorbed in the talk that I quite forgot to notice that the rain had wholly ceased. At the close of the service the audience scattered, enough time elapsed for them to reach their home shelter, and then the rain poured down again.

And the floods of water, rushing over a little dam in the center of the grounds the next morning, were a striking reminder of how heavy the rain had been, before and after that interlude.

And, again, the process here is not difficult to trace. The Holy Spirit suggested the brief bit of silent prayer made after the audible prayer.

The mention of the blood of Jesus drove that evil spirit being, with his nagging insinuating doubt, drove him off in a panic.

The Holy Spirit honored the blood of Jesus by check- ing "the prince of the power of the air" (Eph. 2:2) .He held back the wind and rain, counteracting the Evil One's power, for that little time.

And so the purpose of the prayer was served. The process is not difficult to trace in the light of the teachings of the Book.

The Process Quite Clear

It is very striking to find the process in prayer outlined for us in one particular sort of thing. I mean the process by which someone for whom we are praying, drops his opposition to the Savior, and comes gladly trusting him.

It is that remarkable passage in Paul's second letter to Timothy (2 Tim. 2:24-26). I have ventured to make a free reading of it, in simple English, to bring the meaning closer home.

Paul is touching a very common, a very tender, matter in speaking of those who haven't accepted Christ as a personal Savior, and who seem quite set in opposition to him.

It may be those who are tied up in the bundle of life with us, very tenderly and tightly, with the cords of friendship and of love. Our hearts are much drawn out in prayer that they may make the great decision.

Paul is talking of such as these in this truly remarkable passage. listen to him: The Lord's servant (or ambassador seeking to win the other) must not argue, or discuss in an argumentative way, but be strongly gentle and patient toward all such.

He should be quick and ready in explaining things in their true light, patient under misunderstandings and even under wrongs done. He should try modestly to make things clear, and clearer, to those who are really opposing their true selves, and their own interests.

In this way God can lead them to a change of mind about himself. And so these who have been taken captive by the devil may return to their sober senses.

And so they may rescue themselves out of the snare of the devil, and yield themselves to the gracious plan of God for their lives. This is a paraphrase of what Paul really says here.

Here the process in prayer is quite clear. And it appeals at once to one's good common sense. If we couple two other bits of the Book with this, we see the process fully rounded out.

That Peter passage (2 Peter 3:9), already referred to, tells us what God's will for these is. Our Lord Jesus' words give us the general form in which our prayer may properly be put (Matt. 6:13).

He teaches us to pray, "Deliver us from the Evil One." That word "deliver," the word underneath, is a picture word. Its meaning is rescue.

A traveler in one of those narrow lonely Judean valleys is suddenly waylaid by the highwaymen, infesting those parts. Some other travelers, coming suddenly on the scene, drive the highwaymen off, and set the man free of them. That is the pictured meaning.

Now, here, there's the human side and the divine, our part and God's part. We are really acting together as partners in this. We seek gently, tactfully, to make the simple truth clear, patiently bearing up under misunderstandings, willful or real.

We pray: "Rescue them from the Evil One." In effect, in spirit, we step over on the battlefield of a life, holding up the blood red banner of Jesus, the Victor.

The Evil One cannot hold against his Victor. He must leave, reluctantly, angrily, slowly, but surely; He must leave that battlefield.

Through our prayer the man is set free of the foul confusing influence of the Evil One. Through our bit of simple talk, and our warm gracious personal touch, he is also helped to return to his sober senses. He accepts Christ now as his personal Savior.

By that simple decisive act he rescues himself from the Evil One, and puts himself in line with the true purpose of his being. The process of action is natural, and simple, and clear.

The Process Illustrated

One night John B. Gough, the old-time temperance orator, found a lady waiting in the anteroom of the lecture platform, seeking a personal interview. She was a mother. Her son, in his early twenties, had been reading hurtful books. He thought the Bible a tissue of old folklore, and the like.

He did not believe there is a God. Would Mr. Gough be so very kind as to talk with her son?

An appointment was fixed up. The two men met. Gough in his kindly human way started the young man to talking freely.

No, there was no God, the young fellow was clear; the Bible had some good things in it, but was generally quite unreliable as a guide, and so on.

Gough listened quietly. Then in a pause he said, "Well, that's pretty serious, isn't it? Why not pray about a thing as serious as that?"

"Pray!" the young man exclaimed. Whom would he pray to? There was no God, he felt sure. And Gough didn’t contradict. He didn't argue. With simple rare tact he fitted into the other's mental mood.

Very quietly he said, "Well, why not pray to Love?" He believed in love. He believed in his mother's love for himself. There certainly was love. Why not pray to Love?

And this was a master stroke. For love for his mother was the young man's tender spot. And this suggestion took hold of him. He promised that he would pray to love. Love personified.

That night he knelt at his bedside. With head bent, and hands clasped in the attitude of prayer, he knelt. For he was really honest in his skepticism. Usually, you scratch a skeptic and you find a sinner, a common dirty open sinner, hiding behind the fine intellectual veneering of skepticism. Usually, but not always, by any means. There are honest skeptics. It's a delight to talk with them, and whip things out honestly.

This young fellow was thoroughly honest and earnest. So he kneeled, and made the bit of prayer. "Oh! Love!" he said. That was his prayer. And he stopped. There was utter silence.

Then, noiseless as the dews of Hermon, clear as the vibrant tone of a bell, three words were spoken within his mind. They were words he knew from the time of his mother's milk. They were these: " God is love." And an inner impulse came to him. And he obeyed it. He said aloud, "Oh! God." That was the second prayer. And again there was silence, deep silence in the room, and in his inner spirit.

And again an inner voice spoke. So softly, so distinctly, the words came within. They were words he knew as far back as he knew anything. They were these: "God so loved—that he gave—his only begotten Son," and so on.

And again a distinct impulse came in his inner spirit. And again he obeyed the impulse. "Oh! Christ," he said. That was the third bit of prayer.

Then something happened Outside everything was just as it had been, the room quiet, the pieces of furniture here and there, as before. He seemed oddly conscious of this. But, inside there was a deep, an exquisite quiet. The common word is peace. But that inner deep calm was so much more than that word seems to express.

He was in touch of will and spirit with Someone unseen, Christ! There were a score of questions unanswered. No one ever gets all his questions answered. As quickly as one is answered a half dozen take its place. But enough was answered, in that rarest spirit touch within his very being, enough to live his life, true and pure and honest. And so more light would break in.

Now, it is very significant that one can trace the process here. I mean that part of the process of which one may be conscious, more or less. Without doubt, through his mother's prayer there was a freeing of him from that evil spirit touch, of which we have talked.

Here is the other side, the human side, in part. Notice: He was earnest. He was honest. He wanted to find the light regardless of where it might lead his feet, and reverse his attitude. There was an actively willing spirit.

Then he knelt. That was a distinct step forward. Kneeling in itself means submission, submission to something, someone, however inarticulate. Kneeling implies adoration, reverence, a willingness to yield to something higher, if there be something or someone higher.

That kneeling would affect his will. It would free the joint of the will of any stiffness, any rust, and so make it easier to bend. That "rescue" prayer is being effective. The young man's mental processes are being normalized, freed of that bad spirit influence. There is now an openness of mind, of spirit, a willing- ness. Through that opening door a message comes. Aye, a messenger speaks. He hears. He heeds. That means that opening door is opened wider. Another message, another widening of the opening, and yet more. Now the door is open. It is open from the inside, the only way that door of the will can open.

And now through that open door Someone comes in. And his presence means that deep, quiet, rhythmic, unspeakable peace.

The process can be traced. It runs along through normal human lines. It is fascinating as a study in psychology. It is heartwarming as a study in a man coming back home to normality, and to Christ, and so to his own true self.

And the young man rose from his knees, and ran to his mother, and he used the good old-fashioned language, "Mother, I've been converted."

So he had been. "Converted," i.e., turned altogether. "Been converted," i.e., passive voice; some influence acting upon him had turned him. "Converted," i.e., active voice; acting under that initial turning influence he had now actively, of his own accord, acted. He had turned. The process is a delight in study.

And he was so completely turned, by that Spirit touch, and by his own free action, that he started turning others, and devoted his life and powers to the turning of his fellows to Christ.

The process which can be traced in the working out of prayer, appeals to one's thinking power. It satisfies the keenest, most exacting, brain. There's a sweet reasoning in it, that fully answers all intellectual requirements.

Then there is more, a great more. The fact of prayer bringing results themselves, some loved one normalized and ringing true, or something less than this, though not little, the results start the music a-ringing out in the joyous major key. The process is blessed to trace. The fact is yet more blessed to know about.

Help us to see thee clearly as thou dost come to us in thy Book. Help us to know thee as thou dost come to us, each, direct, by thy Spirit.

Through thy most precious blood, for thy name's sake. Amen.