What is prophetic prayer?

But the great general principle is, that what came down into our wants in wisdom, goes up and is answered in power; but this coming down is in grace in Christ, so that it is immediately connected with divine love, and the confidence of faith expresses this. The great secret is to be with God. If God trusts His mind with one, and thus he is a prophet, then the action follows - God does not let His words fall to the ground; and to this there is analogy or approach, when we walk wholly with God, though there be no official function, and, in the case of the prophets, what was announced authoritatively was at any rate sometimes, always in spirit habitually, prayed for, as James teaches us in Elias for the famine, so authoritatively announced in history. And so the Lord Himself, in the case of Lazarus. But what a place this gives to prayer - dependent intercourse with God in grace, as admitted into His interests, though encouraged to bring every want in childlike, perfect confidence in Him, because He has taken up all our interests into His own love.

Prayer is the condition of practical blessing to the saint. Combined with thanksgiving, it is the outward expression of the faith of the inner man. Power for service flows as a result from prayer, for such power is the acting of God in sympathy with His own Spirit in us who produces the desires thus expressed. The moving spring of prophetic energy of old was the prayer of faith (James 5:16-17). Jesus prayed before He called Lazarus from the grave. He glorified God thus. Refusing to act as from Himself, He called upon Him whom He came to glorify by perfect dependence in love. Thus He could say, "The Father which dwells in me, He does the works." Solace to the wearied and buffeted spirit, springs, too, from the same source. I need not pursue this farther. I add only one consideration, that prayer is the inalienable right of a Christian. There is no time, or circumstance (except actual sin), when a Christian may not pray. Prayer is, indeed, the proper touchstone of a believer's actions. Whatever cannot be done prayerfully, should not be done at all.

It is deeply interesting to compare this verse with Genesis 20:7, and John 15:7. One sees that being a prophet, i.e., having the communication of the mind of God, places one in, and supposes that intimacy with Him which enables to ask and have of Him, and obtain. It produces and implies, in its nature, that kind of confidence, that claim in grace arising from intimacy, that possession of His mind which enables to intercede. Martha was sure Christ was in this position; she did not know, nor realise His intrinsic living power. And note, the Christian, so far as he values his place in Christ, is in this position, "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done"; compare John 16:26-27; see also 1 Corinthians 2:16.

187 As regards prophets, spoken of above, you have Abraham and Abimelech - "he is a prophet, and he shall pray for you"; it is nearness to God which gives power, i.e., enables to dispose of it - "This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting."

The Old Testament abounds in allusions to prayer. “Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and He shall hear my voice” (Ps. 55:17). In conclusion, I would like to give you an example of prayer, found in 1 Kings 18:41-46. In the first verse of our chapter we find that God told Elijah that He was going to send rain upon the earth. Many Christians throw their responsibilities and privileges overboard because of God’s sovereignty. God in His sovereignty was about to bless Israel, to remove the curse that had for so long dried up her streams, and turned the country “flowing with milk and honey” into an and wilderness. The prophet might have said, “What need I pray, when God has told me He is going to send the rain?” But not so; he went to Mount Carmel—a place of expectancy—from whence he could scan the whole seaward horizon. Then “he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees.”

The case of Elijah is interesting, as showing us (and there are other examples of the same kind) how the Holy Ghost acts inwardly in a man where we see the outward manifestation of power. In the history we have Elijah's declaration: "Jehovah liveth, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word." This is the authority, the power, exercised in the name of Jehovah. In our epistle the secret operation, that which passes between the soul and God, is set forth. He prayed, and God heard him. We have the same testimony on the part of Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus. Only that in the latter case we have the two together, except that the prayer itself is not given — unless in the unutterable groan of Christ's spirit.

God, by His servant Paul, linking prayer with prophecy, places prayer first in order (1 Cor. 11:4). It is not a question of the comparative importance of the two, but one of moral order, or precedence. Prayer paves the way for prophesying, as it does for all effective ministry.

It connects itself, moreover, with individual faith and the energy which stands for God in the midst of departure. The prophet — for we are not now discussing the exceptional case of Balaam — is the "man of God." James introduces Elijah in his first words in Israel, as the righteous man of fervent effectual prayer, which shuts the heavens and restrains the earth from fruit. And he has before this adduced" the prophets who have spoken to you in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience." Prophesying was not, as the priesthood was, something successional and heritable, but a distinct gift to each person who received it.

When Daniel read the book of Jeremiah and saw that the seventy years had a short time to run (perhaps another two years), he began to pray to God in relation to the promise that God had made, that after seventy years had expired He would take a remnant of the people out from Babylon and bring them back to the land of promise (Dan.9:2). So Daniel began to pray, and he prayed intelligently, he prayed about the city, he prayed about the land, he prayed about the people. Here was a prayer in the Spirit. It was an intelligent prayer, it was not about himself (except confessing his failures), but he was praying for God's interests in God's land, in God's city and for God's people. Oh, that was an intelligent prayer, a prayer in the Spirit.

The Bible is a very large book, and if a man or woman is guided by the Spirit of God to give an appropriate word bearing upon the condition of the saints at any given time then they are prophesying - they are giving a word of prophecy to meet particular needs.