A Christian can take his burdens to the Lord and leave them there day by day and have perfect peace. And the only way he can do this is by prayer, regular prayer with supplication and thanksgiving about every problem.

What is the answer to infidelity and atheism and modernism? How can we convince those who do not believe in our God? By having such unmistakable answers to prayer as to prove that there is a prayer-answering and prayer-hearing God! Let God prove himself by answering prayers.

Until God's people can have definite, remarkable, provable answers to prayer, then we had as well expect that our young people will grow up doubting that there is a miracle-working, prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God.

All your arguments against modernism, against evolution, against atheism, will fall on deaf ears if along with your arguments you cannot give some definite proof in answered prayer.

If Christianity is the true religion, and if God be a miracle-working, prayer-hearing, prayer-answering God, then the unsaved world has a right to demand that we prove it by having our prayers answered.

God did not say, as so many of our beloved but powerless Bible teachers say today, that miracles are all for the past and not for the present. Rather, God was delighted that Gideon demanded evidence of His power.

God is perfectly willing to prove he is the prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God, and that is the only real remedy for unbelief and atheism.

When the churches of our land again see the startling conversions of drunkards and harlots, with lives transformed, then sinners will come to church and will listen respectfully to the Word of God.

When God's people pray for and get the healing of the sick, rain, jobs, daily bread, revivals, all in answer to prayer, then modernism and atheism will lose their hold on the minds of people in America and even the unconverted will believe that there is a God who answers prayer.

It is not always God's will to heal the sick. It was not always his will to heal the sick in Bible times. But he healed the sick often enough to prove that he was the prayer-hearing God.

The secret of power in preaching is prayer. The secret of power in personal soulwinning is prayer. The secret of revival is prayer.

Prayer, unceasing supplication to God, was the secret of the power that came at Pentecost and resulted in the saving of so many souls. We ought to pray, then, because prayer is God's appointed way for us to have the power of the Holy Spirit to do his work.

No one has to go through a formal prayer in order to be saved. God hears the faintest cry of the heart without a moving of the lips. But often the trembling steps of faith are taken with more ease when one prays, consciously putting into words his cry for mercy, his dependence.

Prayer is asking. Or, in other words, it is seeking and knocking. One who prays is expecting to receive. One who knocks is expecting something opened. One who seeks is expecting to find something. That is what the Bible says prayer is, really: asking, seeking, knocking.

Prayer is not praise. Prayer is not adoration. Prayer is not meditation. Prayer is not confession. Prayer is not thanksgiving. The heart of prayer is to ask something from God. Everything else is an incidental which is not essentially part of prayer. Prayer is asking.

The Lord's Prayer, the model prayer, which Jesus gave us in Matthew 6:9-13 is a series of requests. The Lord's prayer is petition, all the way. We are plainly commanded to pray like this daily. When the Bible speaks of prayer it always means asking.

Throughout the gospels Jesus gave examples of prayer. Prayer is like a man saying, "Friend, lend me three loaves." It is like a widow saying, "Avenge me of mine adversary." It is like a son asking bread of a father. According to Jesus, anybody who can ask for things can pray.

The only "prayer" in the New Testament that is held up for scorn is the prayer of the Pharisee in Luke chapter 18. He "prayed" in public long and loud, but he did not ask for a thing! That is the kind of prayer that God hates!

When man becomes occupied with how much he can do for God, it is blasphemy and unbelief. But when poor, self-confessed sinners begin to call on God for what he so graciously and lovingly offers, then that is proper and legitimate prayer.

Prayer is a truck that goes straight to the warehouse, backs up, loads, and comes home with the goods. Too many people rattle their trucks all over town and never back up to the warehouse! Much of our so-called praying is not asking, and so it is not really praying.