Prevailing Prayer
By D.L. Moody and Erwin W. Lutzer
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About this ebook
“[Prayer] has been the theme of prophets and apostles, and of all good people in all ages of the world...”
Where God has worked, the people have prayed. Hannah pleaded for a son and received Samuel. Elijah called on God and saw fire come down. Paul and Silas prayed and the prison shook.
Why do some prayers move mountains and others, barely stones? In Prevailing Prayer, one of the greatest evangelists of all time explains the elements of biblical, powerful prayer. A treasure trove of stories and illustrations, it will renew your desire to pray and guide you in best practices.
For those who wonder where the power is, who long to see new spiritual depths, who need reminding that God can change a life, Prevailing Prayer is inspiration to pray humbly and often—to seek by prayer to “move the Arm that moves the world.”
There are certain books everyone should read… Moody Classics.
D.L. Moody
Dwight Lyman Moody, also known as D. L. Moody, was a well-known American evangelist who founded the Moody Church, Northfield School and Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts, Moody Bible Institute, and Moody Publishers.
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Book preview
Prevailing Prayer - D.L. Moody
1941, 1987, 2016 edition by
THE MOODY BIBLE INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the King James Version.
Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV
and New International Version
are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
Interior Design: Smartt Guys design
Cover Design: Kirk DouPonce / Dog Eared Design
Photo Credit: National Gallery of Art / David Cox (1783–1859), Mountain Heights, Cader Idris
ISBN: 978-0-8024-1561-5
We hope you enjoy this book from Moody Publishers. Our goal is to provide high-quality, thought-provoking books and products that connect truth to your real needs and challenges. For more information on other books and products written and produced from a biblical perspective, go to www.moodypublishers.com or write to:
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Foreword
Prefatory Note
1. The Prayers of the Bible
2. Adoration
3. Confession
4. Restitution
5. Thanksgiving
6. Forgiveness
7. Unity
8. Faith
9. Petition
10. Submission
11. Answered Prayers
Friend,
Thank you for choosing to read this Moody Publishers title. It is our hope and prayer that this book will help you to know Jesus Christ more personally and love Him more deeply.
The proceeds from your purchase help pay the tuition of students attending Moody Bible Institute. These students come from around the globe and graduate better equipped to impact our world for Christ.
Other Moody Ministries that may be of interest to you include Moody Radio and Moody Distance Learning. To learn more visit www.moodyradio.org and www.moody.edu/distance-learning.
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The Moody Publishers Team
Foreword
by Erwin Lutzer
THE PRAYER OF A RIGHTEOUS PERSON IS POWERFUL AND EFFECTIVE.
(James 5:16 NIV)
PRAYER CHANGES THINGS!
We’ve all read that promise from the book of James, but do we believe it?
Several years ago, my wife, Rebecca, and I attended a prayer meeting at The Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York City. We arrived early on a Tuesday evening only to discover that the sanctuary was already beginning to fill with people, while hundreds of others were lined up along the street waiting to enter. About 1,500 gathered for two hours of lively, focused prayer. Later, I asked Pastor Jim Cymbala why so many were attending the Brooklyn Tab prayer meetings when many other churches have cancelled their prayer meetings for lack of interest. He answered, You would also have a full church on prayer meeting night if your people actually believed that God answers prayer!
If we actually believed God answers prayer!
D. L. Moody was a man who believed in prayer. He preached on the topic of prevailing prayer
because he believed that only when we get serious with God can we expect an answer. Moody stressed that prayer is more than simply uttering a few biblically sound phrases. Prayer—prevailing prayer—involves the whole of our being. It affects our minds because we are occupied with God; it affects our wills because we desire to be yielded to God; and it affects our emotions because we are consumed with a love for God. When it came to prayer, Moody was all in.
The book you hold in your hands is a primer on prayer. In it, Moody deals with different aspects of prevailing prayer, such as adoration, confession, forgiveness, and more. Perhaps no other book reveals the true heart of the great evangelist as does this one. Here we see Moody’s humility, his commitment to live a holy life, and his great belief that if we persist in prayer God will answer. He disdained formalism and lukewarmness; he believed that Christians who lacked vibrancy in their faith were making more infidels than all the books infidels ever wrote.
I have been the beneficiary of D. L. Moody’s prayers. For thirty-six years I had the privilege of being the Senior Pastor of The Moody Church in Chicago. The present Sanctuary dates back to 1925 and was built as a memorial to Moody, who died in 1899. But the building itself is of little importance. The real tribute to Moody is the lives that have been transformed because of his vision: first to begin a new church, then twenty years later to found the Moody Bible Institute. These two institutions have a remarkable history of fidelity to the great doctrines of the faith, and to this day both continue to spread the gospel around the world—all because Moody believed in prevailing prayer. He believed that we must get a hold of God
in prayer.
Please don’t read this book hurriedly. Sip, don’t gulp—five to ten pages a day will suffice. When I first read it, I felt a deep conviction as it exposed my own lack of confidence that God will indeed answer prayer. I encourage you to meditate on what you read and to let these messages from Moody’s heart sink deep into your own. Your prayer life will be changed. That is my testimony, and I know it will be yours as well.
—DR. ERWIN W. LUTZER
Pastor Emeritus of The Moody Church
Prefatory Note
"THE TWO FIRST and essential means of grace are the Word of God and Prayer. By these come conversion; for we are born again by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever; and whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
By these also we grow; for we are exhorted to desire the sincere milk of the Word that we may grow thereby, and we cannot grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ except we also speak to Him in Prayer.
It is by the Word that the Father sanctifies us; but we are also bidden to watch and pray, lest we enter into temptation.
These two means of grace must be used in their right proportion. If we read the Word and do not pray, we may become puffed up with knowledge, without the love that buildeth up. If we pray without reading the Word, we shall be ignorant of the mind and will of God, and become mystical and fanatical, and liable to be blown about by every wind of doctrine.
The following chapters relate especially to Prayer, but in order that our prayers may be for such things as are according to the will of God, they must be based upon the revelation of His own will to us; for of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things; and it is only by hearing His Word, in which we learn His purposes toward us and toward the world, that we can pray acceptably, praying in the Holy Ghost, asking those things which are pleasing in His sight.
These addresses are not to be regarded as exhaustive, but suggestive. This great subject has been the theme of Prophets and Apostles, and of all good men in all ages of the world; and my desire in sending forth this little volume is to encourage God’s children to seek by prayer to move the Arm that moves the world.
D. L. MOODY
The Prayers of the Bible
THOSE WHO HAVE LEFT the deepest impression on this sin-cursed earth have been men and women of prayer. You will find that Prayer has been the mighty power that has moved not only God, but man. Abraham was a man of prayer, and angels came down from heaven to converse with him. Jacob’s prayer was answered in the wonderful interview at Peniel, that resulted in his having such a mighty blessing, and in softening the heart of his brother Esau; the child Samuel was given in answer to Hannah’s prayer; Elijah’s prayer closed up the heavens for three years and six months, and he prayed again and the heavens gave rain.
The Apostle James tells us that the prophet Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are.
I am thankful that those men and women who were so mighty in prayer were just like ourselves. We are apt to think that those prophets and mighty men and women of old time were different from what we are. To be sure they lived in a much darker age, but they were of like passions with ourselves.
We read that on another occasion Elijah brought down fire on Mount Carmel. The prophets of Baal cried long and loud, but no answer came. The God of Elijah heard and answered his prayer. Let us remember that the God of Elijah still lives. The prophet was translated and went up to heaven, but his God still lives, and we have the same access to Him that Elijah had. We have the same warrant to go to God and ask the fire from heaven to come down and consume our lusts and passions—to burn up our dross, and let Christ shine through us.
Elisha prayed, and life came back to a dead child. Many of our children are dead in trespasses and sins. Let us do as Elisha did; let us entreat God to raise them up in answer to our prayers.
Manasseh, the king, was a wicked man, and had done everything he could against the God of his father; yet in Babylon, when he cried to God, his cry was heard, and he was taken out of prison and put on the throne at Jerusalem. Surely if God gave heed to the prayer of wicked Manasseh, He will hear ours in the time of our