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If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.
– Mark 3:24-25
George Mueller (1805-1898) of Bristol, England, obtained the English equivalent of almost ten million dollars in his lifetime through prayer for his homes for orphans. He never asked anyone but God to provide for the needs. Mueller didn’t pray for a thing just because he wanted it or even if it was (in his opinion) greatly needed for the Lord’s work. When Mueller was burdened to pray for something, he first checked Scripture. Sometimes he would search the Word for days before he would pray about his burden. Commenting on his method of prayer, Mueller said he would search Scripture,
“Not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word, not for the sake of preaching on what I meditated upon, but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. The result I almost always found was that after a very few minutes my soul was led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that, though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less into prayer.”
Then, with a finger on the promise in his Bible and his heart turned to God, he would plead that promise until he received what he asked for. He always prayed with an open Bible before him.*
Can we pray like that? For God to heal our nation? There’s no need for me to catalog the sins of our culture. We all know what they are and we’re all guilty. Our nation is suffering moral failure and the results are greed, perversion and every manner of evil.
How would George Mueller have prayed for us? Maybe he would have chosen a scripture addressed to a nation very much like ours. Perhaps it would be this familiar passage from 2 Chronicles 7:13-14:
“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
Do you believe that God will answer a prayer like that? I do. Maranatha!
*Alvin J. Vander Griend with Edith Bajema, The Praying Church Sourcebook, Church Development Resources, Muller’s Method, p.340.
