Why Prayer Is Never the Last Resort

Johnny, a very bright 5 year old, told his daddy he'd like to have a baby brother and, along with his request, offered to do whatever he could to help. His dad, a very bright 35 year old, paused for a moment and then replied, " I'll tell you what, Johnny, if you pray every day for two months for a baby brother, I guarantee that God will give you one!" Johnny responded eagerly to his dad's challenge and went to his bedroom early that night to start praying for a baby brother. He prayed every night for a whole month, but after that time, he began to get skeptical. He checked around the neighborhood and found out that what he thought was going to happen, had never occurred in the history of the neighborhood. You just don't pray for two months and then, whammo- a new baby brother. So, Johnny quit praying. After another month, Johnny's mother went to the hospital. When she came back home, Johnny's parents called him into the bedroom. He cautiously walked into the room, not expecting to find anything, and there was a little bundle lying right next to his mother. His dad pulled back the blanket and there was -- not one baby brother, but two!! His mother had twins! Johnny's dad looked down at him and said, "Now aren't you glad you prayed?" Johnny hesitated a little and then looked up at his dad and said, "Yes, but aren't you glad I quit when I did?"

Think of all the things that we think and we say about prayer. Many times, we treat this spiritual discipline and mighty privilege as a last-ditch effort or the action of those who are incapable of doing anything else for God. I must admit that God has been dealing with my own heart in regard of my attitude toward prayer. Since I have been quarantined to my home for the past couple of weeks, I have grown discouraged in my inability to do something—anything—for God. If I am honest, too often, my reliance rests not upon what God has, is, and will do through my life, but rather in my meager attempts to do things for Him. So, I have found myself left with no other choice but to pray. It has seemed like the leftover ministry for one with no other opportunities.

Yet, Scripture portrays the prayers of God’s people in a very different manner. In fact, prayer is not presented as the last option for the saints (when all our own efforts have been exhausted), but rather as the greatest work in which we could ever participate. A passage that expresses this so amazingly in found in the book of Revelation. As God unfolds His plan for the consummation of all things at the return of Jesus Christ, the Apostle John explains how God’s wrath will be poured out upon the world of unbelievers. Yet, God’s wrath precludes the great coming of the King when He will finally vanquish evil and make all things new. And as all of these events are unfolding, we are made privy to the means by which God will finally reveal His glory.

When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. (Revelation 8:1-5)

This passage describes the scene in which the fulfillment of God’s wrath will finally come (which of course will be followed by the return of Christ). All of creation and all of God’s people throughout human history have been awaiting this glorious day. And at this all-important moment (in which even an eerie silence in Heaven accentuates the event) we are told that God takes the prayers of His people to fulfill His great plan of redemption. In fact, this has always been the case. God uses the prayers of His saints to daily fulfill His mighty plans. And all of our prayers are being stored up even now by our God who will not allow any faithful act to be wasted.

Note the manner in which some Bible scholars describe this glorious truth:

The saints appear insignificant to men at large. But in the sight of God they matter. Even great cosmic cataclysms are held back on their account. And the praises of the angels give way to silence so that the saints may be heard.—Leon Morris, The Revelation of John

The fire comes from the very altar on which the prayers of the saints have been offered. This surely means that the prayers of God's people play a necessary part in ushering in the judgments of God. "What are the real master-powers behind the world and what are the deeper secrets of our destiny? Here is the astonishing answer: the prayers of the saints and the fire of God. That means that more potent, more powerful than all the dark and mighty powers let loose in the world, more powerful than anything else, is the power of prayer set ablaze by the fire of God and cast upon the earth."—Thomas Torrance, quoted by Morris, Revelation

These great events: thunder, sounds, lightening, earthquake simply represent the action of God from heaven on the world as the scroll of the end of the age begins to open and the seven trumpets and the seven bowls are poured out. The unmistakable point is that your prayers bring that about. What God wants us to believe about our God-exalting prayers is that none of them is lost. None is wasted or pointless. They are stored up on the altar of God until the proper time when God pours them out on the earth to accomplish his great purposes of judgment and redemption.—John Piper, “The Prayers of the Saints and the End of the World”

So, never think or say again, “Well, I guess all we can do now is pray.” Prayer is the greatest work to which any of us can participate with God. He hears every God-honoring prayer that is lifted up in the name of Jesus Christ. God’s great work of redemption in our world today, and even until the coming of Jesus Christ, has never been about what we could do for Him. Rather, it is only and always about what God is doing in and through us. With that great hope and encouragement, let us pray.

Jason