Effectual Fervent Prayer Avails Much

    Hard places are God’s bugle call to a more earnest, a more desperate faith on our part. "Because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth" (Luke 11:8).

    What does the devil care about our prayers unless we pray until God answers? Charles G. Finney wrote:

    "I knew a father in the West who was a good man, but he had erroneous views respecting the prayer of faith, and his whole family were growing up and not one of them converted. At length his son sickened and seemed about to die. The father prayed, but the son grew worse and seemed sinking into the grave without hope.

    "The father prayed until his anguish was unutterable. He poured out his soul as if he would not be denied, till at length he got an assurance that his son would not only live but be converted, and not only the one, but his whole family would be converted to God.

    "He came into the house and told his family his son would not die. They were astonished at him. ‘I tell you,’ said he, ‘he won’t die. And no child of mine will ever die in his sins.’ That man’s children were all converted years ago."