Keep Praying until God Answers!

By R. A. Torrey

In my first pastorate there were two whom God put upon my heart and for whose salvation I prayed through my entire time there. But I left that field of labor without seeing either one converted. When I went to Germany for further study, then took a new pastorate in Minneapolis, I kept on praying every day for those two. 

I went back to the place where I began my ministry to hold a series of meetings, still praying every day for their conversion. Then one night when I gave the invitation for all who would accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, those two arose side by side.

There was no special reason why they should be side by side, for they were not relatives. When I saw those two for whom I had prayed all those years standing up side by side to accept the Lord, what an overwhelming sense came over my soul that there is a God who hears prayer if we meet the conditions and follow His method of prevailing prayer!

God Wants to Train Us 

Why is it that God does not give to us the things that we ask, the first time we ask? The answer is plain: He would do us the far greater good of training us in persistent faith. 

For our own good God compels us to be persistent in our effort. He would train us to be strong men and women of prayer by compelling us to pray hard for the best things. He compels us to “pray through.” 

Many tell us we ought not pray for the same thing a second time. They say the way to pray is to ask God for a thing and then “take it” by faith the first time we ask.  

While doubtless there are times when we are able through faith in the Word, or through the clear leading of the Holy Spirit, to claim a thing the first time we have asked of God, nevertheless, there are other times when we must pray again and again and again for the same thing before we get our answer. We are told distinctly regarding our Master in Matthew 26:44, “And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.”

Spiritual Laziness and Unbelief

There are many who, when they pray for a thing once or twice and do not get it, stop praying. They call it “submission to the will of God” to pray no longer when God does not grant their request at the first or second asking. 

But as a rule, this is not submission to His will, but spiritual laziness and lack of determination in that most all-important of all human lines of effort—prayer.  I am glad that the first time we ask, God does not always give us the things that we seek from Him. 

There is no more blessed training in prayer than that which comes through being compelled to ask again and again and again, even through a long period of years, before one obtains that which he seeks from God. Then when it does come, what a sense we have that God really does answer prayer! 

Revival Comes with Persistent Prayer

Many prayers fail to accomplish that which we seek from God. We pray and pray and pray, and are almost up to the verge of the attainment of that for which we are praying, and right then, when God is just about to answer the prayer, we stop and miss the blessing. 

In many churches and communities there are those who are praying for a revival. The revival does not come for some time, but they keep on praying. They are right on the verge of attaining what they sought, and if they would pray a little longer, the revival would break upon them. But they get discouraged, throw up their hands, and quit.

In January 1900 or 1901, the faculty of the Bible Institute of Chicago instituted a late prayer meeting Saturday nights from nine to ten o’clock, to pray for a worldwide revival. After we had been praying for some time, people came to me and would say, “Has the revival come?” 

“No, not as far as we can see.” 

“When is it coming?” 

“We don’t know.” 

“How long are you going to pray?” 

“Until it comes.”

And come it did—a revival that began in that prayer meeting room of the Bible Institute in Chicago, then broke out in far-away China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, India, and swept around the world. In Wales, under Evan Roberts and others, it resulted in 100,000 professed conversions in 12 months. 

Oh, men and women, pray through! Do not just begin to pray and pray a little while and throw up your hands and quit; but pray and pray and pray until God rends the heavens and comes down!   

R. A. Torrey (1856-1928) was an American evangelist and pastor. Torrey joined D. L. Moody in his evangelistic work in Chicago in 1889, and became superintendent of the Moody Bible Institute. He preached around the world, led many revival services, and wrote many classic books on prayer.