Plead His Promises
“One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.” Luke 6:12
Have you heard of Armin Gesswein? This saint, a real man of God if ever there was one, for more than 50 years conducted prayer rallies for Billy Graham’s crusades and established the organization known as Revival Prayer Fellowship, which brought pastors and Christian leaders together for prayer.
Armin tells of how he learnt the importance of prayer as a young Lutheran pastor, aged 24, striving to plant a church on Long Island, New York.
Things were not going well for him but in his church fellowship was a retired blacksmith, about 50 years his senior.
Armin had noticed that when this man prayed, things happened. Wanting to learn his spiritual secrets, Armin asked if he might join the old blacksmith in prayer.
Going to the blacksmith’s home, they crossed the driveway and went to the old barn where they climbed up into the hayloft. Armin prayed. Then Ambrose Whaley, the old blacksmith, prayed. Finally, Armin turned to the old man and said, “You have some kind of a secret in praying. Would you mind sharing it with me?”
“Young man,” said the old blacksmith, “learn to plead the promises of God.”
The old man had knelt between two bales of hay, and on each bale of hay was an open Bible. His two large hands, gnarled and toughened by years of hard labour, were open, covering the pages of each Bible.
Armin learned his lesson well. “I learned more about prayer in that haymow than in all my years of schooling for the ministry”, he said.
Prayer should never be an appendage tacked onto our plans. It should be the frontal assault.
The main reason most prayers are powerless and overwhelmed with spiritual impotence is that we do not plead the promises of God.
Understanding the relationship between the promises of God’s Word and our prayers is the secret of prayer because God always honours His word.
Learn a lesson from a man who constantly would say, “Let’s pray!” and he never meant some other time. He meant “now!” And then don’t just pray, but pray and stand upon the authority of God’s word. Some spiritual secrets are just too good to keep to yourself.