The Prayer of Faith

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. MARK 11:24

Finney had first stumbled over prayer as an unbeliever. At Adams he heard church members pray week after week for revival and confess that nothing came. He concluded that they did not pray in faith, in the sense of expecting God to give them what they asked. His fifth lecture on revivals, The Prayer of Faith, is the fruit of that early puzzle, and it is at once one of the most bracing and one of the most troubling things he wrote.

Believe that ye receive

His text was Christ’s promise in Mark 11. Many had said that it referred only to the faith that works miracles. Finney would have none of it. Read the next verse, he said: when ye stand praying, forgive. Is forgiveness required only of those who work miracles? The promise belongs to all who pray.

But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. JAMES 1:6

And what are we to believe? Not merely that God exists, or that He will do something good somewhere. “No, we are to believe that we shall receive the very things that we ask for,” Finney wrote. A father praying for his son is not to suppose that God may convert somebody else’s son instead. God does not give a stone to the child who asks for bread.

Faith must have evidence

Here Finney made a point that is too often forgotten by those who quote him. Faith, he insisted, always needs evidence. “It is the height of fanaticism to believe without evidence.” We have no right to believe that a thing will be done merely because we want it.

He named five kinds of evidence. The first is a particular promise, as when God promises to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. Here, said Finney, to pray “if it be thy will” is to insult God. “To put an if into God’s promise, where God has put none, is tantamount to charging God with being insincere.” He told of a young convert, newly come from a wicked home, who was grieved that the old members prayed for the Spirit and then added, if it be Thy will. Her minister argued her down, but could not forget it; he came to see she was right, told his church so, and a revival followed.

The second is a general promise that fairly applies to our case — such as, When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him (Isaiah 59:19). The third is prophecy, as when Daniel read in Jeremiah that the captivity would last seventy years, and set his face to seek the Lord for its end. The fourth is the plain leading of providence. And the fifth is the Spirit of God stirring strong and holy desire for a particular blessing, which Finney took as an intimation that God meant to grant it.

In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. DANIEL 9:2

How to come to such faith

Finney’s counsel on how to pray in faith is simple and sound. You cannot decide to believe, any more than you can decide to feel. Instead, search the Scriptures for the promises, as Daniel did. Fasten on each one you can use. Cherish the least spark of good desire and do not let it be trifled away. Consecrate yourself wholly to God. Persevere, as Daniel persevered for three weeks. Walk with God daily, and He will show you what to pray for.

And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us. 1 JOHN 5:14

There is great good in this. Most Christians have promises under their eyes that they have never used. Many pray vaguely because they have never asked what God has actually said. And the habit of tacking “if it be Thy will” onto requests God has plainly promised is a real form of unbelief. Finney was right to call it out.

Where the lecture overreaches

But the lecture pushes its logic too far, in ways that have wounded tender consciences, and honesty requires us to say so.

First, to protect his principle that the prayer of faith always obtains the very thing asked, Finney reinterpreted the hard cases. Christ in Gethsemane, he argued, was not praying to be spared the cross but to be spared dying of anguish in the garden, and that prayer was answered. Paul, praying three times about the thorn in the flesh, did not pray in faith, since he had no promise to rest on. These readings are strained. Most Christians have seen in Gethsemane the model of perfect submission — Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done — and in Paul’s thorn the lesson that God sometimes answers by giving grace instead of removal.

Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. LUKE 22:42

Second, and more seriously, Finney laid a crushing burden on praying parents. He taught that there is a promise which godly parents may apply to their children, and when asked why so many praying parents have seen their children die unconverted, he answered in effect that God’s promise cannot fail, so the parents must not have done their duty. In another lecture he said that pious parents can render the salvation of their children certain. He even wrote that millions are in hell because professors have not offered the prayer of faith.

This goes beyond Scripture. God’s promises to the families of His people are real and precious, and parents should plead them. But Scripture never makes a child’s salvation the mechanical result of a parent’s faith. Every soul must turn for itself; the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, nor the father the iniquity of the son (Ezekiel 18:20), and the same is true of faith. A parent who has prayed long and seen no fruit should not be told that the fault is theirs. They should be told to keep praying, and to trust a God whose ways are higher than ours.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. ISAIAH 55:9

Third, the fifth kind of evidence — strong desire as a sign of God’s will — is real, but fragile. Finney himself admitted that he once drew a false inference about timing from such an assurance. Treat inward leadings humbly and test them long.

Take God at His word

When all the qualifications are made, the heart of the lecture stands. Finney was converted by taking a promise at its word in the woods. He spent his life urging the church to do the same. God is not reluctant. He means what He says. Search out His promises, and pray them back to Him expecting to be heard.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Find three promises in Scripture that bear on something you are praying for. Write them out and pray them daily.

2. Notice where you add “if it be Thy will” to requests God has plainly promised, such as wisdom or the Holy Spirit, and stop.

3. Where God has not promised the specific thing, pray boldly but leave the outcome with Him, as Jesus did in Gethsemane.

4. If you are a parent grieving over a child, refuse the false guilt of believing you failed to pray hard enough. Keep praying in hope.

5. Test any inward assurance about an answer by Scripture and by time, holding it loosely.

A PRAYER

Father, You have given me exceeding great and precious promises, and I have left most of them unused. Forgive my unbelief.

Teach me to search Your Word, to fasten on what You have said, and to pray it back to You expecting to receive.

Where You have not told me Your will, give me bold desire and a submissive heart, like my Lord’s in the garden.

I bring You those I love who do not know You. I plead Your promises for them, and I trust them to Your mercy. Amen.