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Prayer for the Sick
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good word and promise will be fulfilled unto them. But if they come
short of perfect obedience, the great and precious promises are afar
off, and they cannot reach the fulfillment.
All that can be done in praying for the sick is to earnestly impor-
tune God in their behalf, and in perfect confidence rest the matter in
His hands. If we regard iniquity in our hearts the Lord will not hear
us. He can do what He will with His own. He will glorify Himself
by working in and through them who wholly follow Him, so that it
shall be known that it is the Lord and that their works are wrought
in God. Said Christ: “If any man serve Me, him will My Father
honor.” When we come to Him we should pray that we may enter
into and accomplish His purpose, and that our desires and interests
may be lost in His. We should acknowledge our acceptance of His
will, not praying Him to concede to ours. It is better for us that
God does not always answer our prayers just when we desire, and in
just the manner we wish. He will do more and better for us than to
accomplish all our wishes, for our wisdom is folly.
We have united in earnest prayer around the sickbed of men,
women, and children, and have felt that they were given back to us
from the dead in answer to our earnest prayers. In these prayers
we thought we must be positive and, if we exercised faith, that we
must ask for nothing less than life. We dared not say, “If it will
glorify God,” fearing it would admit a semblance of doubt. We have
anxiously watched those who have been given back, as it were, from
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the dead. We have seen some of these, especially youth, raised
to health, and they have forgotten God, become dissolute in life,
causing sorrow and anguish to parents and friends, and have become
a shame to those who feared to pray. They lived not to honor and
glorify God, but to curse Him with their lives of vice.
We no longer mark out a way nor seek to bring the Lord to our
wishes. If the life of the sick can glorify Him, we pray that they may
live; nevertheless, not as we will but as He will. Our faith can be just
as firm, and more reliable, by committing the desire to the all-wise
God, and, without feverish anxiety, in perfect confidence, trusting
all to Him. We have the promise. We know that He hears us if we
ask according to His will. Our petitions must not take the form of
a command, but of intercession for Him to do the things we desire
of Him. When the church are united, they will have strength and