Prayer has been the passion of countless Christians who have been used by God in remarkable ways through the centuries. Yet ordinary Christians like you and me often feel guilty at the mere mention of the word.
Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?
2 KINGS 2:14
We now come to what is potentially the most important article you will read. It is probably the one that, if acted upon, will lead to the most dramatic and immediate changes in the average Christian’s experience. Ironically, it is also the one many of us might be tempted to skip over. It is, however, impossible to overestimate the importance of prayer. Down through the centuries countless Christians who have been used by God in remarkable ways have been particularly devoted to prayer.
Yet ordinary Christians like you and me often feel guilty at the mere mention of the word. Which of us feels satisfied with our prayer life? Who feels that he or she prays enough and that his or her prayers are as effective as they could be? We offer many reasons, or rather excuses, for our prayerlessness. Wayne Grudem has rightly pointed out:
If we were really convinced that prayer changes the way God acts, and that God does bring about remarkable changes in the world in response to prayer, as Scripture repeatedly teaches that he does, then we would pray much more than we do. If we pray little, it is probably because we do not really believe that prayer accomplishes much at all.[1]
I wish I was more of an expert at prayer and that I prayed more than I do. I do thank God that I am learning. Sadly, however, I recognize myself all too often in that quote. I long to know more about reviving prayer. I know I am far from alone in feeling this way. Like Jesus’ disciples, almost all Christians regularly feel the need to come to the Lord and ask that he “teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1).
Prayer is the way in which we communicate with the divine. We must not underestimate this privilege of being able to speak directly to God. Prayer is often intended to change us rather than to alter our situation. In other words, it is meant to help us mature spiritually. Prayer is also one way in which we express our faith, and it is a means by which our faith is nourished and developed.
We are invited to direct our prayers to the risen Christ. Jesus said, “If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:14). Paul describes Christians as those who “call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:2). Stephen prayed to Christ, saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7:59).
Because of the resurrection of Jesus we can pray boldly knowing that our God is alive, and because he is capable even of raising the dead, he is definitely able to do whatever we ask him. If he is willing to send his Son to die and rise again for us, why should we doubt that he also now wants to do good for us? We come as a child to a loving father in the sure and certain knowledge that even though we do not always understand, he will only say no if it is for our good.
Historians tell us that every recorded revival started with a prayer meeting.[2] Prayer becomes more intense, and all-night prayer meetings are not uncommon. People even become Christians in the prayer meetings. Perhaps one of the most striking examples of this happened in Coleraine in Northern Ireland in 1859:
A schoolboy in class became so troubled about his soul that the schoolmaster sent him home. An older boy, a Christian, went with him, and before they had gone far, led him to Christ. Returning at once to school, this new convert testified to his teacher, “Oh, I am so happy. I have the Lord Jesus in my heart.” These artless words had an astonishing effect; boy after boy rose and silently left the room. Going outside, the teacher found these boys all on their knees, ranged along the wall of the playground. Very soon their silent prayer became a bitter cry; it was heard by another class inside and pierced their hearts. They fell on their knees, and their cry for mercy was heard in turn by a girls’ class above. In a few moments, the whole school was on their knees. Neighbors and passers-by came flocking in, and all as they crossed the threshold came under the same convicting power. Every room was filled with men, women and children seeking God.[3]
Something similar happened the same year in New York when a weekly prayer meeting, which began with just six people, swelled to fill theaters and led directly to one million Americans apparently being converted that year. This amounted to one in thirty of the whole population.
This clear link between revival and prayer has led some to think this is an automatic process—that if you do certain things, a massive revival is always the result. However, God is sovereign, and we cannot force his hand. Of course, we must not stop doing everything else and just pray. A well-known motto is attributed to William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army: “Work as if everything depends on you. Pray as if everything depends on God.” When we pray, we passionately ask God to act; and when we have finished praying, we get up and go do the work God has commanded us to do with vigor, trusting him to bless our efforts. We can even do some of the things we would do if revival was already here. For example, it would be a foolish pastor indeed who prayed for God to save souls but never preached an evangelistic sermon.
When Christians repent and pray in a certain way, it’s almost as if this is irresistible to God. We can expect him to answer and renew us individually, even if this doesn’t lead to a widespread revival. If prayer is one of the catalysts to large-scale revival within the church, certainly prayer can also trigger revival in a local congregation, a small group, or even an individual. A key question then becomes, what type of prayer will produce this effect? When we don’t confidently know the answer to this question, we too often doubt that our prayers will have any effect. Almost all Christians seem to struggle with prayer and wish they could be more effective in it.
ELIJAH, A MAN JUST LIKE US
One of God’s servants who has often inspired me and has taught me much about prayer is the prophet Elijah. He was a man who certainly knew how to pray. Elijah understood the necessity of fervent reviving prayer. The dramatic events of his life are frequently seen as representing revival. When we pray for revival, we say things like “Send the fire!” or “Send the rain!” Elijah saw both sent from heaven quite literally. The New Testament honors Elijah:
The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit. (James 5:16–18)
What exactly is this effective fervent prayer that connects us to God’s reviving power? To try to answer that question, we will look at every recorded prayer of Elijah, beginning in 1 Kings 17. Undoubtedly Elijah prayed many more times than the prayers recorded in Scripture. For example, James tells us he prayed that the rain would stop, although that prayer is not specifically mentioned elsewhere. We can be sure that he had already learned many other lessons through his own personal prayer life. These prayers of Elijah are recorded to be examples for us. As we examine his prayers we will discover a series of keys that will help us imitate the prayer life of this man of God.
REVIVING PRAYER RECOGNIZES THE SITUATION WE ARE IN
The prayer that best exemplifies reviving prayer is the first recorded supplication of Elijah in 1 Kings 17. This story concerns a widow who was looking after the prophet during a great drought. When reading this account, we might expect that God would give her some kind of reward for doing this. Instead, her son suddenly dies. But Elijah’s prayer led to the resurrection of the widow’s son.
And he cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?” Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” (1 Kings 17:20–21)
Elijah was brought into a desperate situation in which there were no clever answers for him to give. It drove him to prayer, and we find that it sometimes takes a similar experience before we are driven to our knees. Faced with the complaint of the boy’s mother, as Matthew Henry puts it, “He gave no answer to her expostulation, but brought it to God, and laid the case before him, not knowing what to say to it himself.”[4]
This prayer recognizes the situation rather than trying to deny it or put a brave face on it. In this regard, it reminds us of the case of Abraham, who “did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb” (Romans 4:19). The niv interprets the idea “considered” here as “faced the fact.”
This very honest language is in stark contrast to the way some Christians are taught that to speak the name of a sickness gives it power to harm and that prayer should instead declare that a person is already healed when they clearly are still sick. Elijah told God that the boy was dead. He was merely reminding God of his sovereignty in what initially sounds like an accusation that God had deliberately killed the widow’s son. These words were remarkably clear and direct about the facts of the situation facing Elijah. However, like Abraham, he did not only acknowledge the facts. During this dilemma, he lifted his eyes above the situation, and as a result his faith increased.
REVIVING PRAYER CRIES PASSIONATELY TO GOD
Both Elijah and Abraham faced times when they had to have one eye on their situation and were honest about it, but also had one eye on God. They both knew that despite harsh realities, nothing is impossible with God. As Robert Mounce explains in his commentary on Romans 4:
From a common sense standpoint, there was not the slightest possibility that she [Sarah] would bear a child. This, however, did not cause Abraham to weaken in his faith. Faith goes beyond human potentiality. It acknowledges the existence of one who is not bound by the limitations of the created order. Conscious of his own utter impotence, Abraham relied simply and completely on the all-sufficient power of God. Where God is present, there is nothing that lies outside the realm of possibility. The church of Jesus Christ is in desperate need of those who will insist that God is able to bring to pass anything that is consistent with his nature and in concert with his redemptive purposes. Your God is too small is a sad epitaph inscribed on all too many ecclesiastical groups who, strange as it may seem, claim to worship the Almighty.[5]
Elijah did not see God as being too small, and he insisted that God was able to perform a remarkable miracle. He cried out to God. This prayer had strength about it—it almost challenged God in a way reminiscent of Genesis 32, when Jacob wrestled with God. When Elijah cried out to God passionately, his prayer was answered, and the boy lived. Is our prayer today as fervent and passionate? Of course, passion on its own without biblical roots leaves us prone to excess and error—the contrast between Elijah and the prophets of Baal brings this into sharp focus.
REVIVING PRAYER CALLS ON THE GOD OF HISTORY
Elijah’s first recorded prayer had been answered. In the next chapter we find him boldly standing before the whole nation of Israel. He was beside an altar that was soaking wet, facing 450 religious fanatics, the prophets of Baal, who had been cutting themselves with swords, trying to persuade their god to send fire. Elijah stood fearlessly, mocking them. Here is his clear prayer, which led to a dramatic response:
“O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.” (1 Kings 18:36–39)
In this prayer, Elijah called on the God of history. When we read about what God has done in the past, both through the revivals in church history and in the biblical accounts, it encourages us that the God who acted then can also act today; more than that, he wants to act in a similar way today. Why do we often feel it is almost impudent to simply ask him to act in the way he has before? God seems to delight in this type of prayer, which we often see in the Bible. We can remind him of the past and dare to cry out, “Do it again, Lord!”
Habakkuk 3:2 is a good example of this: “O Lord, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O Lord, do I fear. In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known.” The niv interprets this as: “Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known.”
REVIVING PRAYER DESIRES THAT GOD BE HONORED
In this prayer we find that Elijah’s motivation was that God might be honored. He prayed that the people would know that God is God. When we pray, we need to examine our hearts and say, “Why am I asking for this? Is it so I can be more comfortable? Or is it so God will be glorified?”
REVIVING PRAYER RECOGNIZES THAT REPENTANCE IS GOD’S WORK
Elijah asked the Lord to turn the hearts of his people back to God. Maybe you have prayed for years for a son or daughter who has wandered far from God or for a friend or relative who has never known him. Understanding that it is God, not us, who turns the heart to follow him should encourage us not to give up.
We cannot expect friends or family members to sense their need for God on their own, for “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4). We were all blind once, but God “shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). It takes a resurrection miracle in our heart for any of us to become a Christian.
REVIVING PRAYER BOLDLY ASKS GOD TO ACT
Elijah challenged God, saying, “Answer me!” Too often prayer is simply worrying out loud. We recite our woes to God and then feel a bit better for having done so. Like the early church praying for the release of Peter, we are often shocked when our prayers are answered. Imagine Peter standing there knocking at the door while intense prayer is going on inside for his release. This has always seemed humorous to me, especially when the gathered saints in great faith tell the door girl in effect, “Don’t be silly; it must be his ghost!” (see Acts 12:15). When we ask God to do something, we should not be surprised when he does it.
Elijah was not surprised when his prayer for fire was answered, and he didn’t stop there. He had something else to request:
And Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of the rushing of rain.” So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel. And he bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” And he went up and looked and said, “There is nothing.” And he said, “Go again,” seven times. And at the seventh time he said, “Behold, a little cloud like a man’s hand is rising from the sea.” And he said, “Go up, say to Ahab, Prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain stop you.” And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he gathered up his garment and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel. (1 Kings 18:41–46)
REVIVING PRAYER SHAPES IN US A GOD-CENTERED PERSPECTIVE
Elijah then retreated from the hubbub and noise that must have accompanied these events to get someperspective. In the Bible, God often meets people in the mountains. Perhaps this is to symbolize how, in prayer, we are called to soar above our circumstances. We need to catch a vision of God himself and of the risen Jesus seated on the throne of heaven.
Praying while walking in a forest, going on a retreat, during a commute, or even just locking ourselves in the bathroom can all be ways of disconnecting from the world and connecting to God.
Elijah’s prayer on the mountain may not even have involved words; certainly no words are recorded. Instead, we see a quiet recognition of God’s superiority. Bowing before God, he recognized that God is the sovereign King. In almost every culture, bowing is seen as being subservient. There are times when it is most appropriate to kneel before God. When things go well for us, as they had for Elijah, that’s the time when we most need to humble ourselves before God and to seek his guidance for the next step. No one type of prayer is right all the time, and we must learn how to pray appropriately in each situation.
REVIVING PRAYER IS PERSISTENT IN WAITING ON GOD
Elijah kept praying, sending his servant seven times to look for the cloud, and in so doing was persistent in waiting on God. He didn’t give up as we so often do. Instead he kept coming back to God in prayer despite the lack of any sign that he had been heard. However, his faith was such that when a small cloud finally appeared, he saw that small sign as settling it. Sometimes there comes a point in prayer when we almost feel we don’t need to pray any longer. We should not stop praying, but we may suddenly feel a confidence that God has now settled the matter. We might even start to thank him before we have received the answer. This is not something that should be worked up, however. In Elijah’s case, it took the report of the small cloud before he knew for certain that the rain was coming and there no longer was any need for him to pray.
REVIVING PRAYER IS HONEST WITH GOD AND ENGAGES WITH HIM
Despite this stream of amazing experiences and answered prayer, even Elijah didn’t live on the mountaintop, on a “high” with God, forever. In the next few verses he was down in the valley of despair, and yet in that despair he prayed. You will see that the following two prayers are very different and that there are aspects of them we should not emulate. Yet God honored these prayers with a very rare Old Testament manifestation of his presence—God’s “low whisper.” Since God obviously did not completely disapprove of Elijah’s words, we do have something to learn from them:
It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers. (1 Kings 19:4)
I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away. (1 Kings 19:10)
Even when he was desperate, Elijah was still honest before God and engaged with him. Although his words were self-centered and exaggerated in a way common to the despairing, it was still a prayer. Elijah recognized his utter dependence on God. The important point of the story seems to be that while God may often bring us to the end of our own strength and we find ourselves crying out to him, he does not want to leave us desperate.
Suddenly Elijah wasn’t praying about a dead boy or a wet sacrifice or a cloudless sky. Now he himself needed reviving. We see here that God was still interested in the man, although Elijah was just as weak as we are. When we are in distress and come to God, God is as eager to revive us as he was to revive Elijah.
Prayer is not merely a matter of what words we choose when we pray or even what emotions we feel; it is more a question of understanding whom we are addressing. Elijah approached the living God. When the living God meets a man who wants to die, the results can be unexpected. Life instead of death. A new start. A new commission. Perhaps you’ve been as desperate as Elijah was, and having been faithful to God, you now believe you have reached the end of the road. Maybe you feel you’ve disqualified yourself. Remember the story of Elijah. God revived the prophet then, and he wants to do just that for you now.
Having studied the prayer life of Elijah, it should perhaps be no surprise that the first recorded prayer of his successor, Elisha, was something to which we can also relate. Elisha cried out, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” (2 Kings 2:14). We can ask the same thing today: Where are the miracles? Where are the salvations? Where are the dramatic acts? Where is God? The answer is, he is still here, he is still in the business of bringing life where there is death, and he still is the One who answers by fire. As churches we can ask him for the fire of revival, as the psalmist did:
Restore us again, O God of our salvation, and put away your indignation toward us! Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations? Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation. (Psalm 85:4–7)
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Chapter One:
Chapter Two:
Chapter Three:
Resurrection: Fact or Fiction? Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?
Chapter Four:
Chapter Five:
Chapter Six:
Chapter Seven:
Chapter Eight:
Chapter Nine:
Chapter Ten:
Chapter Eleven:
REFERENCES
[1] Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology (Leicester, UK: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994), 377.
[2] Roger R. Nicole, “Prayer the Prelude to Revival,” Reformation and Revival, Vol. 1 (Act 3, formerly Reformation and Revival Ministries, 1997), 25–37.
[3] Winkie Pratney, Revival (Cambridge: Huntingdon House, 1994), 24–25.
[4] Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991, 1996).
[5] Robert H. Mounce, Romans, in The New American Commentary, Vol. 27 (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2001), 129.
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