“The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much,” the Bible says. Last week at Wednesday night church was a time of fervent prayer. It started out ordinarily enough, with prayer requests taken and prayed for by the congregation, then any who wanted to be prayed for individually for an extra-special need was invited to come down in front of the altar. One man stood up and said, “I don’t know why you came to church, but I came here to be healed tonight!” He said he had been having severe pain in his back that was making standing and walking unbearable.
Many from the congregation gathered around, laying hands on him with earnest entreaties and supplications to God in his behalf. He responded in joyous acclamations of faith and the receiving of his healing. There was not a dry eye in the group raising hands and shedding ardent tears of thanksgiving and praise. When he resumed his seat, he said he got what he came for; the pain was gone!
While the Spirit was moving, a woman presented a desperate request for her son to find a job. He had been seeking work for a long time, and his mother felt keenly his urgency and need. Prayers went up again.
The next time we met, reports started coming in. A woman who was in the prayer circle at the previous service announced that intractable back pain she had been dealing with disappeared that Wednesday night and hadn’t come back. The man who had been healed testified that his pain had not returned. Then the mother jumped to her feet and said her son had gotten a job! Another man who had been looking for work announced that he had gotten a job, also! A grandmother who had asked prayer that night for her grandson’s salvation was jubilant that his mother had called her, told her the boy went forward at his church and was saved a few days later!
Tonight my husband was asked to lead the testimony service, and he started out by giving a testimony of his own. It seems a very inebriated or drug-influenced customer came into the place of business where Howard works the other day. Howard’s heart went out to the young man, who was being assisted by another person as he tried to make a purchase. The otherwise nice-looking young man was disheveled, dirty and incoherent, but in his confused state of mind he realized his condition, saying he needed to rest and get to his grandpa’s house to get cleaned up. Howard said, “I want to pray for you.” He got the man to repeat the sinner’s prayer and gave him $5.00, not knowing for sure what the outcome would be.
A few days later, the customer came back. This time he was clean, polite and grateful. “You’ll never know what you did for me,” he told my husband. “You got me back on the right track. Nobody’s ever done that for me before.” Another instance of the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man.
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