Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-12-14

| enough don't you think. your father up
| n heaven has sense enough to give you
the things you ask for?
ASK and we shall receive Knock and
it shall be opened unto you"
Now there are immediate as well as
deferred answers to prayers. Please re-
member the DEVILS business is to pre-
vent prayers from being answered, and
while you are praying for your hus-
| band for some cause, please remem-
Der the devil is working hard to OPP
pose that.
The DEVILS business is to oppose God
in everything that is for the human
/ race and how anybody will stand up
for the devil is more than L can under
stand Yet, you think when l talk
against the devil L am hitting you. Some
of you.
Now let me give you an illustration.
| Daniel prayed for something. Here is
what the Lord said
Daniel, at the beginning of thy sup
plication your prayer was heard"
| When Daniel prayed, God heard and
God started an angel on the wing with
the answer to Daniel and it took the
angel three weeks to get to Daniel with
! the answer and when the angel arrived
! he said, "At the beginning of your sup
plication your prayer was heard but the
princes of the power of the air hath
withstood me three and twenty days,
so the angel was three weeks getting
down to Daniel with that answer.
| Why? Because the DEVILS business
was to keep him, away with the answer.
So when you pray, Gods answer is on
the way, but the devil is going to keep
! it, if in his power, away from YOU so that
you will say there is nothing in God.
| So, therefore, the devil may keep the
answer away from some peoples for
years, get them discouraged and get
| them to quit.
Some don't get what they pray for
because they look downward, it is too
low.
/ went into town in Indiana and a
man came up to me and he said:
There are seventy-six men here who
have pledged themselves that three
times We will pray for you in the meet
| ings. We have arranged with every
firm and they will let them off any hour
of the day or night and if there is any
discouragement or trouble that you want
me to help you with, you let me know
and / will summon that band of men
and we will meet you. We are Gods
and we have signed our contract and
we have got it all arranged and l want
you to know that there are seventy-o..>
men IN this town that will die for Jss.s
Christ and are willing to go with you
| to the last ditch"
1 saw men seventy and eighty years
| of age that had resisted every appeal,
come down the aisle and they would sing
as the tears rolled down their cheeks
and heard them say: Il have wandered
far away from God, but now l am COM
ing home"
l have seen men climb on the roof,
take out the windows, rip off the boards,
go to the dry goods stores and get
boxes and put them against the taber-
nacle so they could see in and hear, and
it transformed the whole part of the
country for Jesus Christ And how
God will bless us if we will do his will.
1 went to a town in Iowa, and 1 saw
the preacher there in this audience the
other night. 1 got the preachers togeth-
er and the Presbyterian said: 81 have
women in my church and not one of
their husbands are there"
And the Methodist and the Baptist
told me the sameS
said, Meet in the tabernacle and
we will just pray for those men,"
They met in the tabernacle and every
morning we prayed for those men, some
of whom held prominent positions in
business, and in politics And some Of
of God by these women. Prayer by the
power of God.
Over in Scotland some years ago they
had a long, hot, dry spell and every
thing was whitening, and they called for
fasting and prayer, and they were going
up to church to pray that God would
send rain and one of the elders met a
little girl tagging big umbrella and he
said: "Lassie, where are you going?"
She said, 81 am goin' to church to pray
for God to make the rain, and / dinna
want to get wet when it begins to rain"
Bless her little heart.
There was Hannah. She had no child
She didn't believe in birth control and
neither do l, or any other poppy-cock
stuff that is going around nowadays.
And Hannah prayed God and God heard
her prayer and she became the mother
of baby, Samuel.
And there was Jacob, he prayed, and
he reminded God of the promise and he
said to him, make my seed as the sands
of the seashore," and God fulfilled his
promise.
And there was Nehemiah. He prayed
and God gave him power and he went
back with a company of people and in
fifty-two days he rebuilt the walls of
Jerusalem.
Peter was in prison and his prayer
was made without ever seeing the
church of God Oh! what paralysis
the lack of prayer has made to the
church If the prayer of the church of
the first century had been as skeptical
as we seem to be today, there would
have been no record of this story.
But they met and prayed and God, n
response to their prayers, shook the old
prison bars open and Peter walked out
and went to his own.
Elijah prayed. He was man subject
to passions and he prayed that it might
not rain and for three years and six
months there was not a drop of rain
or dew fell on the earth. Then he pray
ed and God opened the heavens and
poured them down.
SO prayer has power over devils.
Prayer has power over nature, over the
troubles of the world and disease.
Prayer is almost a universal habit. Great
men pray, rich men pray, poor men pray,
bad men pray, good men pray, good
women pray, bad women pray, virtuous
women pray, prostitutes pray.
"n1an Is Invariably
A Religious Animal"
An aetheist in a railroad wreck said:
my God what is this?
In a moment he forgot that he was
a professional agnostic and so the in
Of ba SOnl a come tn i