INTERCESSORY PRAYER
After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord made him prosperous again.
Job 42:10
What a promise is contained in this verse! Our longest sorrows have an ending, and there is a bottom to the profoundest depths of misery. Winter shall not frown forever; summer shall soon smile. The tide shall not eternally ebb out; the floods retrace their march. The night shall not hang its darkness forever over our souls; the sun shall yet arise with healing beneath his wings. He who turned the captivity of Job can turn yours as the streams in the south. He shall make your vineyard to blossom and your field to yield her fruit again.
Intercessory prayer was the sign of Job’s returning greatness. It was the rainbow in the cloud and the dove bearing the olive branch. When Job’s soul began to expand itself in holy and loving prayer for his erring brethren, the heart of God showed itself to him by returning his prosperity and cheering his soul within.
Remember that intercessory prayer is the sweetest prayer God ever hears. What wonders it has wrought! Intercessory prayer has stopped plagues. It removed the darkness that rested over Egypt, drove away the frogs that leaped upon the land, scattered the lice and locusts that plagued the inhabitants of Zoan, removed the thunder and lightning, stayed all the ravages that God’s avenging hand did upon Pharoah and his people. We know that intercessory prayer healed diseases in the early church. We have evidence of it in old Mosaic times. When Miriam was smitten with leprosy, Moses prayed and the leprosy was removed. Intercessory prayer has raised the dead, for Elijah stretched himself upon the child seven times, and the child sneezed, and the child’s soul returned. As to how many souls intercessory prayer has instrumentally saved, only eternity shall reveal it! There is nothing that intercessory prayer cannot do.
Believer, you have a mighty engine in your hand—use it well, use it constantly, use it now with faith, and you shall surely prevail.
Holy Spirit, shape my life until I truly become an intercessor for God. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment