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Scripture Reading: Eph. 6:18; Ezek. 36:37; Isa. 62:6-7
God works according to certain laws and principles. Although He can act as He pleases, He does not act recklessly; He acts according to His preordained laws and principles. God is above all laws and principles; He is God, and He can act as He pleases. Yet we see a wonderful thing in the Bible. Although He is so great and can act as He pleases, He acts according to laws, and it seems as if He has voluntarily placed Himself under law and is willing to be governed by law.
What are the principles of God's work? One main principle of God's work is the need for man's prayer. He wants man to cooperate with Him in prayer.
There was once a Christian who was very experienced in prayer. He said that all spiritual work consists of four steps. In the first step, God intends to do something; there is God's will. In the second step, He reveals this will to His children through the Spirit so that they know His will, His plan, His desire, and His aspiration. In the third step, God's children return His will back to Him through prayer. Prayer is the echoing of God's will. If our heart is in tune with God's heart, spontaneously we will speak forth God's will. As a result God will accomplish His work in the fourth step.
We will not look at the first and second steps now. We will pay attention to the third step, which is returning God's will back to God. Please pay attention to the word return. All worthwhile prayers are a kind of returning. If our prayer is only for the fulfillment of our plans and wishes, it will not have any value in the spiritual realm. Only the prayers that are initiated by God and that echo what He has initiated have any worth. God's work is governed by prayers. God is willing to do many things, but He will not do them when His people do not pray. He must wait for man to agree with Him before He will do them. This is a great principle of God's work, and it is also one of the most crucial principles in the Bible.
The words in Ezekiel 36:37 are most peculiar. God said that His purpose is to "increase them with men like a flock." This is God's ordination. He will surely accomplish what He has ordained. But He has to wait; He cannot accomplish it immediately. What is God waiting for? He said, "I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them." God ordained that the men of the house of Israel be increased. Yet He had to wait for the Israelites to inquire of Him. Once the Israelites inquired of Him, He would fulfill it. God is determined to do something, but He will do it only after man has given his consent; He will not do it immediately. When God works, He does not work only according to the fact that He has a will; He also waits until there is a response from His children before He acts. This is a most amazing fact.
We must remember that spiritual work is a matter of God determining and His children agreeing. God initiates, and then His children agree. This is an important principle in spiritual work. God said, "I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel." God's work required the Israelites to inquire. One day, when the Israelites truly inquire of the Lord, God will accomplish it for them. Brothers and sisters, this is the principle of God's work! God may initiate a work, but He will not accomplish it until we pray. From the time the church was formed, God has not done anything without the prayer of His children. From the time that there have been children of God, everything has been done according to the prayer of His children; everything is accomplished by the prayer of His children. We do not know God's reason for doing this. But we know that this is a fact. God is willing to place Himself in this position. He wants to carry out His will through the prayers of His children.
Another example can be found in Isaiah 62:6-7: "Upon your walls, O Jerusalem,/I have appointed watchmen;/All day and all night/They will never keep silent./You who remind Jehovah,/Do not be dumb;/And do not give Him quiet/Until He establishes/And until He makes Jerusalem /A praise in the earth." God wants Jerusalem to become a praise in the earth. How does He accomplish it? He appointed watchmen upon the walls to remind Him. How should they remind Him? They should not be dumb, and they should not give Him quiet. We must not stop our reminding, and we must not allow God to become quiet. We have to pray until He answers and accomplishes His work. God has a will, and His intention is that Jerusalem would become a city of praise, yet He appointed watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem and charged them to pray. Only after they pray will He work. He asks them not to pray once but unceasingly. They have to pray unceasingly until God's will is accomplished. In other words, God's will is governed by man's prayer. God is waiting for us to pray. The content of God's will is determined by God alone; it is not determined by us, and we have no part in the determination of it. However, the carrying out of His will is governed by our prayer.
A brother expressed it very well when he said, "God's will is like a train engine, and our prayer is like the tracks of the train." The train can go many places, but it can only travel along the tracks. The power of the engine is very great, and it can go east, west, south, or north. Yet it can only go where the tracks are laid. God is not without power, yet He is controlled by man's prayer. All worthy prayers are prayers that pave the way for God's will. Hence, if we do not take up the responsibility of prayer, we will frustrate the accomplishment of God's will.
When God created man, He gave man a free will, so that now there are three wills in the universe. One is the will of God, the second is the will of Satan, and the third is the will of man. Man wonders why God would not destroy Satan quickly. But God would not do this. He wants man to join Him in dealing with Satan. God has His will, Satan has his will, and man also has his will. God wants man's will to be joined to Him; He does not want to destroy Satan alone. We do not fully understand, but we know that God wants to do it this way. He does not want to act alone; He wants man to cooperate with Him. This is the responsibility of the church on earth.
In order to do something, God must first put His will within us through the Holy Spirit. He will only accomplish something after we have echoed it in our prayer. God operates through this procedure. He works this way. He wants man's cooperation; He wants a will that is one with Him and that echoes Him. If God does everything without us, then man does not need to be here, and we do not need to know God's will. Yet every part of God's will needs someone to carry it out, and He wants our will to become one with His will. The first step in carrying out His will is to pray out God's will and utter His will through our prayer. From this we see that prayer is a work. There is no work more important than this work because prayer is the speaking of God's will and the accomplishment of His will. Brothers and sisters, we have to know that God's will is uttered through our prayers. Therefore, prayers that originate from our self-will are useless prayers. Prayers that are according to God's will originate from God. He conveys His will to us through the Holy Spirit, and then we return the same thought to Him through our prayer. Prayers that are after God's heart have God's will as the starting point; man is merely the transmitting and responding organ. Prayer that originates from ourselves has no spiritual value.
In reading church history, we find that every great revival began with prayer. Prayer enables God to do what He wants to do. We cannot ask God to do what He does not want to do, yet we can delay what He does want to do. God is absolute, and we cannot change Him at all. We cannot ask God to do what He does not want to do, and we cannot ask Him not to do what He wants to do. However, if God needs a channel to carry out His will and we do not cooperate with Him, His work will be hindered on account of us. Hence, when we pray, we are not asking God to do what He does not want to do, and we are not asking Him to change His will. Rather, we are declaring God's will in prayer so that He can do what He intends to do. If we think that by begging desperately we can make God do what He does not want to do, we are wasting our energy; the effort is fruitless. If God does not want to do something, no one can make Him do it. We can only do one thing, and that is to pray for God to do what He wants to do. God will accomplish His work through our oneness with Him.
The descending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was prophesied a few hundred years prior to its occurrence, in the time of Joel. Yet many disciples had to pray before the Holy Spirit would descend on them. God had ordained it already, but there had to be men who prayed before it could be fulfilled. Although God can do everything alone, He loves to wait for man to pray before He does anything. God can do many things, but He is waiting for our consent. God is willing to accomplish many things, but He is waiting for our willingness. God is ready to do many things, but without our consent, He still has to wait. Brothers and sisters, although we cannot force God to do what He does not want to do, we can ask Him to do what He wants to do. We have lost many spiritual blessings because we have not expressed God's will through our prayers.
It would be wonderful if we could engage ourselves exclusively in the work of prayer. God is waiting for man to cooperate with Him so that He can accomplish His work. Some Christians have asked why God does not save more sinners. Why does He not make every believer victorious? We sincerely believe that God would do these things, if there were men who first prayed for them. God is not reluctant to work. He is waiting for a group of people who will cooperate with Him. As soon as man cooperates with God, He will work. There is much spiritual work to be done, but God is waiting for His children to respond. Whether or not the work will succeed depends on how God's children pray. We should respond to God by consenting to work together with Him. He is waiting to bless us. The question is whether or not we will ask.
Those who do not know God will say, "If God wants to do anything, He can do it all by Himself. Why is there the need for our prayer? God knows everything. If we pray too much, we may tire Him out." We have to remember that man has a free will. God will not act contrary to His will, but neither will He take over man's will. If man does not pray for God's will, He has to wait. If He wants His will to be done on earth as in heaven, He can do it Himself. Why does He need the disciples to pray, "Our Father who is in the heavens...Your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth"? (Matt. 6:9-10). If God wants His kingdom to come, He can do it Himself. Why is there the need for His disciples to pray, "Your kingdom come"? If God wants His name to be sanctified by all people, He can do it Himself. Why does He have to ask the disciples to pray, "Your name be sanctified"? The answer to these questions is that God does not want to do anything alone; He wants man's cooperation. God is powerful, but we have to lay the tracks. The more tracks we lay, the more God works. Therefore, our prayers should be like a railway network, the more the better.
How should we lay the tracks for God's will? Ephesians 6:18 says, "By means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit and watching unto this in all perseverance." Our prayer should be by all means and at every time. We should have general prayers, and we should also have specific prayers. Many of our prayers are too loose and too careless; there are too many loopholes. This is why Satan finds many opportunities to creep in. If our prayers are fine and careful, and if we cover everything in prayer, Satan will not be able to do anything.
Suppose a brother is about to travel to another place to preach the gospel. You should lay the tracks for him so that God's will can be fulfilled in him. If you only pray a few words for him and ask only that God bless him, protect him, and supply him, this prayer-net is too loose. If you want to pray for a person, you need to lay a very careful prayer-net for him so that Satan cannot creep in from any direction. How should you pray? You should start from the time he leaves his home. You should pray for his health, his luggage, and his train. You should pray for the time he will board the train, his food, and his sleep on the train, as well as the people he will meet on the train. You should also pray for everything he will encounter after he leaves the train and for the house where he will eventually be staying. You should pray for the neighbors and the things he will need while he is staying there. You should pray for the time of his work and everything related to him. After you have prayed for him in such a thorough way, Satan will find it very difficult to identify any loopholes from which to attack him. Hence, the work of prayer is a very practical work. Whoever is lazy, foolish, and loose cannot participate in the work of prayer. After we have earnestly prayed over all the aspects of a certain matter, we often find the matter eventually being accomplished.
There is still one lesson that we have to learn. Satan is full of deception, and we can never anticipate all the schemes that he has. It is impossible for us to pray over them one by one. We can only pray, "Lord, please deal with everything from Satan with Your precious blood." We must realize that the blood is the answer to all the works of Satan. Such a prayer is the best way to deal with Satan. He can never penetrate through these prayers to attack us.
Every time we pray we have to see three things. First, we must see to whom we are praying. Second, we must see for whom we are praying. Third, we must see against whom we are praying. Many times we remember only two of the three aspects; we remember that we are praying to God and for men, but we put Satan aside. In our prayer, we must not only know to whom we are praying but also against whom we are praying. We must not only know for whom we are praying but also that an enemy is out there to damage us. Our prayer is to God; it is for men, and it is against the devil. If we deal well with these three aspects, God will work for us.
Everyone who has a genuine desire to work for the Lord must set up a prayer-net so that God can work through him. God is not reluctant to work; He is waiting for men to pray before He will work. He is looking for some who will have a life of prayer. His will is waiting for man's prayer. There is often no predisposed intention to pray, yet something within urges you to pray. This means that some items of God's will are waiting for your prayer. When you have a burden to pray, and you pray accordingly, that prayer is according to God's will; it is the Holy Spirit who is urging you to pray a prayer that is according to God's will. When the Holy Spirit urges you to pray, you should pray. If you do not pray then, you will feel clogged up, and you will feel that something is left undone. If you continue to refuse to pray, you will feel more clogged up. If you insist on not praying to the end, the spirit of prayer and the feeling for prayer will become dull, and you will not be able to easily pick up the same feeling again later. You will have failed to pray according to God's will.
Every time God wants to put a burden for prayer within us, the Holy Spirit will first give us a feeling and a burden to pray for certain things. Once we have such a feeling, we should immediately pray conscientiously; we should pay a price to pray for that matter. Once we have the prompting of the Spirit, we will immediately have a burden in our spirit, and the burden will remain there. Once we pray, we will feel released, and the rock will be removed. If we do not pray for it conscientiously, we will feel that something is still there. If we do not pray for it, we will feel that we are not being one with God. If we are faithful to prayer and pray immediately after we have a burden, our prayer will not become a burdensome task but an easy and refreshing work. Unfortunately, many people quench the Spirit; they quench the feeling for prayer which the Holy Spirit has put within them. After a while, these feelings no longer come to them, and they are no longer useful vessels in God's hand. They can no longer accomplish anything for the Lord or execute God's will by prayer. Brothers and sisters, if we are this way before the Lord, having lost all feeling for prayer, we are probably in a very dangerous condition. We have lost our fellowship with God, and God can no longer use us for His work. We must be very careful with the feeling that the Holy Spirit gives to us. Anytime we have a burden to pray, we should immediately ask, "God, what do You want me to pray for? What do You want to do now? And what do You want me to pray about?" If we get through in our prayer with this one burden, the Lord will entrust us with a second prayer. If we have not released our first burden, we will not receive a second burden.
We need to ask the Lord to make us a faithful praying person. Once there is a burden, we should release it immediately; we should express it through prayers. If the burden is too heavy and we cannot release it through prayer alone, then we need to fast. Anything that cannot be released through prayer can only be dealt with by fasting. Fasting can release the burden of prayer quickly; it can help us to unload our heaviest burdens. If we continue to engage ourselves in the work of prayer, we will become a flowing channel for God's will; He will come to us whenever He has something that He wants us to pray about. Brothers and sisters, God's will is always seeking an outlet; God is forever seeking men to be the spokesmen for His will. If many people are raised up to do this work, God will accomplish many things through their prayers.
