If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
— John 15:7
The fear of the wicked, it shall come upon him: but the desire of the righteous shall be granted.
— Proverbs 10:24
And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.
— 1 John 3:22
And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
— 1 John 5:14-15
Consider Private Prayer, by Thomas Brooks. The following contains an excerpt from his work, “The Secret Key to Heaven”.
(7.) Seventhly, Consider the time of this life is the only time for private prayer. Heaven will admit of no secret prayer. In heaven there will be no secret sins to trouble us, nor no secret needs to pinch us, nor no secret temptations to betray us, nor no secret snares to entangle us, nor no secret enemies to supplant us. We had need live much in the practice of that duty here on earth, that we shall never be exercised in after death. Some duties that are incumbent upon us now, as praising of God, admiring of God, exalting and lifting up of God, joying and delighting in God, etc., will be forever incumbent upon us in heaven; but this duty of private prayer, we must take our leave of, when we come to lay our heads in the dust.
(8.) Eighthly, Consider the great prevalency of secret prayer. Private prayer is the gate of heaven, a key to let us into paradise. Oh the great things that private prayer has done with God! Psalm 31:22. Oh the great mercies that have been obtained by private prayer! Psalm 38:8-9. And oh the great threatenings that have been diverted by private prayer! And oh the great judgments that have been removed by private prayer! And oh the great judgments that have been prevented by private prayer!
I have read of a malicious woman who gave herself to the devil, provided that he would do harm to such a neighbor, whom she mortally hated: the devil went again and again to do his errand— but at last he returns and tells her, that he could do no devilry to that man, for whenever he came, he found him either reading the Scriptures, or at private prayer.
Private prayers pierces the heavens, and are commonly blessed and loaded with gracious and glorious returns from thence. While Hezekiah was praying and weeping in private, God sent the prophet Isaiah to him, to assure him that his prayer was heard, and that his tears were seen, and that he would add unto his days fifteen years, Isa 38:5. So when Isaac was all alone meditating and praying, and asking God for a good wife in the fields, he meets Rebekah, Gen 24:63-64.
So Jacob: Gen 32:24-28, “So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered. Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.” In this scripture we have an elegant description of a duel fought between the Almighty and Jacob; and in it there are these things most observable:
(1.) First, We have the combatants or duelists, Jacob and God, who appeared in the shape or appearance of a man. He who is here said to be a man was the Son of God in human shape, as it appears by the whole narration, and by Hos 12:3-5. Now, that this man who wrestled with Jacob was indeed God, and not really man, is most evident by these reasons —
(1.) First, Jacob desires a blessing from him, Gen 32:26. Now, it is God’s prerogative-royal to bless, and not angels’ nor men’s. Consequently,
(2.) Secondly, He calls him by the name of God; “you have power with God,” Gen 32:28. And says Jacob, “I have seen God face to face,” Gen 32:30. Not that he saw the majesty and essence of God: for no man can see the essential glory of God and live, Exod 33:20,23; but he saw God more apparently, more manifestly, more gloriously than ever he had done before. Some created shape, some glimpse of glory, Jacob saw, whereby God was pleased for the present to testify his more immediate presence—but not himself.
(3.) Thirdly, The same person who here Jacob wrestles with is he whom Jacob remembers in his benediction as his deliverer from all evil, Gen 48:16. It was that God that appeared to him at Bethel when he fled from the face of his brother, Gen 35:7. Consequently,
(4.) Fourthly, Jacob is reproved for his curious inquiring or asking after the angel’s name, Gen 32:29, which is a clear argument or demonstration of his majesty and glory, God being above all notion and name. God is a super-substantial substance — an understanding not to be understood, a word never to be spoken. One being asked what God was, answered, “That he must be God himself, before he could know God fully.” We are as well able to comprehend the sea in a cockle-shell, as we are able to comprehend the Almighty. “In searching after God,” says Chrysostom, “I am like a man digging in a deep spring: I stand here, and the water rises upon me; and I stand there, and still the water rises upon me.”
In this conflict you have not one man wrestling with another, nor one man wrestling with a created angel—but a poor, weak, mortal man wrestling with an immortal God; weakness wrestling with strength, and a finite being with an infinite being. Though Jacob was greatly overmatched—yet he wrestles and keeps his hold, and all in the strength of him, with whom he wrestles.
(2.) Secondly, You have the place where they combated, and that was beside the ford Jabbok, Gen 32:22. This is the name of a brook or river springing by Rabbah, the metropolis of the Ammonites, and flowing into Jordan beneath the Sea of Galilee, Num 21:24; Deut 2:37; Judg 11:13,15; Deut 3:16. Jacob did never enjoy so much of the presence of God, as when he had left the company of men. Oh! the sweet communion that Jacob had with God when he was retired from his family, and was all alone with his God by the ford Jabbok! Certainly Jacob was never less alone than at this time, when he was so alone. Saints often meet with the best wine and with the strongest cordials— when they are all alone with God.
(3.) Thirdly, You have the time of the combat, and that was the night. At what time of the night this wrestling, this duel began, we nowhere read; but it lasted until break of day, it lasted until Jacob had the better of the angel. How many hours of the night this conflict lasted, no mortal man can tell. God’s design was that none should be spectators nor witnesses of this combat but Jacob only; and therefore Jacob must be wrestling when others were sleeping.
(4.) Fourthly, You have the ground of the quarrel, and that was Jacob’s fear of Esau, and his importunate desire for a blessing. Jacob flies to God, that he might not fall before man; he flies to God, that he might not fly before men. In a storm, there is no shelter like to the wing of God. He is safest, and happiest, and wisest, who lays himself under divine protection. This Jacob knew, and therefore he runs to God, as to his only city of refuge. In this conflict God would have given out: “Let me go, for the day breaks,” Gen 32:26; but Jacob keeps his hold, and tells him boldly to his very face that he would not let him go unless he would bless him. Oh the power of private prayer! It has a kind of omnipotency in it; it takes God captive; it holds him as a prisoner; it binds the hands of the Almighty; yes, it will wrench a mercy, a blessing, out of the hand of heaven itself! Oh the power of that prayer which makes a man victorious over the greatest, the highest power! Jacob, though a man, a single man, a traveling man, a tired man, yes, though a worm, which is easily crushed and trodden under foot, and no man, Isa 41:14—yet in private prayer he is so potent, that he overcomes the omnipotent God; he is so mighty, that he overcomes the Almighty!
(5.) Fifthly, You have the nature or manner of the combat, and that was both outward and inward, both physical and spiritual.
It was as well by the strength of his body as it was by the force of his faith. He wrestled not only with spiritual strugglings, tears, and prayers, Hos 12:4—but with physical also, wherein God assailed him with one hand, and upheld him with the other. In this, conflict, Jacob and the angel of the covenant did really wrestle arm to arm, and shoulder to shoulder, and foot to foot, and used all other sleights and ways as men do, who wrestle one with another. The Hebrew word which is here rendered wrestled, signifies the raising of the dust; because they cast dust one upon another, that so they might take more sure hold one of another. Some conclude that Jacob and the angel did tug, and strive, and turn each other, until they sweat again; for so much the word imports. Jacob and the angel did not wrestle in jest— but in good earnest; they wrestled with their might, as it were, for the garland; they strove for victory as for life.
But as this wrestling was physical, so it was spiritual also. Jacob’s soul takes hold of God, and Jacob’s faith takes hold of God, and Jacob’s prayers takes hold of God, and Jacob’s tears takes hold of God, Hos 12:4-5. Certainly Jacob’s weapons in this warfare were mainly spiritual, and so “mighty through God.” There is no overcoming of God but in his own strength. Jacob did more by his royal faith than he did by his noble hands, and more by weeping than he did by sweating, and more by praying than he did by all his bodily strivings.
(6.) Sixthly and lastly, You have the outcome of the combat, and that is, victory over the angel, Gen 32:28. Jacob wrestles in the angel’s power, and so overcomes him. As a prince, he overpowers the angel by that very power he had from the angel. The angel was as freely and fully willing to be conquered by Jacob, as Jacob was willing to be conqueror. When lovers wrestle, the strongest is willing enough to take a fall of the weakest; and so it was here. The father, in wrestling with his child, is willing enough, for his child’s comfort and encouragement, to take a fall now and then; and so it was between the angel and Jacob in the present case. Now in this blessed story, as in a crystal glass, you may see the great power and prevalency of private prayer; it conquers the great conqueror; it is so omnipotent that it overcomes an omnipotent God.
Now this you may see more fully and sweetly cleared up in Hos 12:4, “He struggled with the angel and overcame him; he wept and begged for his favor. He found him at Bethel and talked with him there.” When Jacob was all alone and in a dark night, and but on one leg—yet then he played the prince with God, as the Hebrew has it. Jacob by prayers and tears did so prince it with God as that he carried the blessing. Jacob’s wrestling was by weeping, and his prevailing by praying. Prayers and tears are not only very pleasing to God—but also very prevalent with God. And thus you see that this great instance of Jacob speaks out aloud the prevalency of private prayer.
See another instance of this in David: Psalm 6:6, “I am worn out from groaning; all night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears.” These are all excessive figurative speeches, to set forth the greatness of his sorrow, and the multitude of his tears. David in his retirement makes the place of his sin, namely, his bed, to be the place of his repentance. David sins privately upon his bed, and David mourns privately upon his bed. Every place which we have polluted by sin, we should sanctify and water with our tears: Psalm 6:8, “Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity; for the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping.” As blood has a voice, and as the rod has a voice, so tears have a voice. Tears have tongues, and tears can speak. There is no prayer compared to those which secret tears make in the ears of God.
A prudent and indulgent father can better pick out the wants and necessities of his children by their secret tears than by their loud complaints, by their weeping than by their words; and do you think that God can’t do as much? Tears are not always mutes: Lam 2:18, “Cry aloud,” says one, “not with your tongue— but with your eyes; not with, your words—but with your tears; for that is the prayer that makes the most forcible entry into the ears of the great God of heaven.” Penitent tears are undeniable ambassadors that never return from the throne of grace without a gracious answer. Tears are a kind of silent prayers, which, though they say nothing—yet they obtain pardon; and though they plead not a man’s cause—yet they obtain mercy at the hands of God. As you see in that great instance of Peter, who, though he said nothing that we read of—yet weeping bitterly, he obtained mercy, Matt 26:75.
I have read of Augustine, who, coming as a visitant to the house of a sick man, he saw the room full of friends and kindred, who were all silent—yet all weeping: the wife sobbing, the children sighing, the kinsfolk lamenting, all mourning; whereupon Augustine uttered this short prayer, “Lord, what prayer do you hear—if not these?”
Psalm 6:9, “The Lord has heard my supplication; the Lord will receive my prayer.” God sometimes answers his people before they pray: Isa 65:24, “And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer.” And sometimes while they are praying; so it follows in the same verse, “And while they are yet speaking I will hear.” So Isa 30:19, “He will be very gracious unto you at the voice of your cry: when he shall hear it, he will answer you.” And sometimes after they have prayed, as the experiences of all Christians can testify. Sometimes God neither hears nor receives a prayer; and this is the common case and lot of the wicked, Prov 1:28; Job 27:9; Isa 1:15. Sometimes God hears the prayers of his people—but does not presently answer them, as in that case of Paul, 2 Cor 12:7-9; and sometimes God both hears and receives the prayers of his people, as here he did David’s. Now in this instance of David, as in a glass, you may run and read the prevalency of private prayer and of secret tears.
You may take another instance of this in Jonah: “From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. He said: ‘In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry. You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me. I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’ The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God. “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. Salvation comes from the Lord.” And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.” Jonah 2. When Jonah was all alone, and in the midst of many dangers and deaths, when he was in the whale’s belly, yes, in the belly of hell—so called because horrid and hideous, deep and dismal—yet then private prayer fetches him from thence. Let a man’s dangers be ever so many, nor ever so great—yet secret prayer has a certain omnipotency in it that will deliver him out of them all. In multiplied afflictions, private prayer is most prevalent with God. In the very midst of drowning, secret prayer will keep both head and heart above water. Upon Jonah’s private prayer, God sends forth his mandate, and the fish serves Jonah for a ship to sail safe to shore. When the case is even desperate— yet then private prayer can do much with God. Private prayer is of that power that it can open the doors of leviathan, as you see in this great instance, which yet is reckoned as a thing not feasible, Job 41:14.
Another instance of the prevalency of private prayer you have in that 2 Kings 4:32-35, “When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his couch. He went in, shut the door on the two of them (Privacy is a good help to fervency in prayer) and prayed to the Lord. Then he got on the bed and lay upon the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. As he stretched himself out upon him, the boy’s body grew warm. Elisha turned away and walked back and forth in the room and then got on the bed and stretched out upon him once more. The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.” Oh the power, the prevalency, the omnipotency of private prayer, that raises the dead to life! And the same effect had the private prayer of Elijah in raising the widow’s son of Zarephath to life, 1 Kings 17:18, et seq.
The great prevalency of Moses his private prayers you may read in the following scriptures: Num 12:1-2, “Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the Lord, and when he heard them his anger was aroused. Then fire from the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the Lord and the fire died down.” Moses by private prayer rules and overrules with God; he was so potent with God in private prayer that he could have what he would from God. So Num 21:7-9; Psalm 106:23; Exod 32:9-14; Exod 14:15-17. The same you may see in Nehemiah, Neh 1:11, compared with Neh 2:4-8.
Private prayer, like Saul’s sword and Jonathan’s bow, when duly qualified as to the person and act, never returns empty; it hits the mark, it carries the day with God; it pierces the walls of heaven, though, like those of Gaza, made of brass and iron, Isa 45:2. Oh, who can express the powerful oratory of private prayer! etc.
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