December 2004

Elijah prayed earnestly

'Elijah was human just as we are. He prayed earnestly' (James 5:17)

I want to come back to the subject of earnest prayer. It is, after all, what marked out Elijah's prayer and it is worth considering the background. Ahab had become King of Israel and it is recorded, 'Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him.' (1 Kings 16:30). He and his wife Jezebel had established Baal worship and the country was being increasingly led away from God and into idolatry and spiritual rebellion. In other words, Israel, which had experienced great favour and blessing from God, was turning to paganism and in a period of severe spiritual decline.

It is presumably because Elijah cared earnestly about the situation that he prayed earnestly, as there is always that link. Any of us who have prayed for a seriously sick relative or friend, or about some other personal crisis, will easily relate to this underlying dynamic.

Certainly Elijah would have been horrified by the treatment of the God he loved in the days of Ahab, and it may not be reading too much into the story to see that this was combined with a love of his country and a horror of the declining standards he saw all around. He longed for a reversal of the decline and knew that this would require God to intervene dramatically, so he prayed earnestly. The result was a prolonged drought which brought the country to its knees, with the result that Elijah became the most wanted man in the Kingdom!

I came across a story about George Muller recently, who was certainly a man of earnest prayer. On one occasion, when his orphanage in Bristol had run out of food, he had all the children sit in front of empty dishes to give thanks for God's provision. As they prayed, a baker's cart broke down outside and the baker decided to donate its entire contents to the orphanage! Again, when we are staring at an empty plate, our prayer is likely to be earnest.

So my question is this. Will we who are staring at the 'empty plates' in the Church and nation at this time, who believe in the God of Elijah, who follow the Lordship of Jesus Christ and have received so many benefits from and through him, rise up in earnest prayer for the life and soul of this Country? That brings me back to where I began because I think the troubling word for us all is 'earnestly' - it would be one thing if the text read 'Elijah prayed…' because we all do that, but it seems to me that the challenge in the days ahead is to seek to test the depths of earnest prayer. I know that I speak to myself as much as anyone else in this.

We will be meeting again for the New Year's Eve Prayer Party from 10pm to Midnight here at HTB and I would love anybody who relates to what I have been saying to join us for that two hours of prayer and worship if they are able to - the more the merrier!

This article is an edited version of one first published in Focus, December 2004. Reproduced here with permission.