From the Cloud of Witnesses : Prayer

I thought digging up quotes from theologians and thinkers of earlier times would be of interest. Here they are:

Isaac’s prayer is described as a sichah, literally, a conversation or dialogue. There are two parties to a dialogue – one who speaks and one who listens, and having listened, responds. Isaac represents the religious experience as conversation between the word of God and the word of mankind
- Sir Jonathan Sacks
Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations
of the Commonwealth

…this truth appears, in that God is, as it were, overcome by prayer. When God is displeased by sin, he manifests his displeasure, comes out against us in his providence, and seems to oppose and resist us. In such cases, God is, speaking after the manner of men, overcome by humble and fervent prayer. “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much,” Jam. 5:16. It has a great power in it: such a prayer-hearing God is the Most High, that he graciously manifests himself as conquered by it. Thus God appeared to oppose Jacob in what he sought of him. Yet Jacob was resolute and overcame. Therefore God changed his name from Jacob to Israel, for says he, “as a prince thou hast power with God and with men, and hast prevailed,” Gen. 32:28. A mighty prince indeed! Hos 12:4, “Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed; He wept and made supplication unto him.” — When his anger was provoked against Israel, and he appeared to be ready to consume them in his hot displeasure, Moses stood in the gap, and by his humbled and earnest prayer and supplication, averted the stroke of divine vengeance, Exo. 32:9, etc. Num. 14:11, etc.
Jonathan Edwards

“Sincere friendship towards God, in all who believe him to be properly an intelligent, willing being, does most apparently, directly, and strongly incline to prayer; and it no less disposes the heart strongly to desire to have our infinitely glorious and gracious Friend expressing his mind to us by his word, that we may know it.”
–Jonathon Edwards

III. Herein the most high God is distinguished from false gods. The true God is the only one of this character. There is no other of whom it may be said, that he heareth prayer.

The true spirit of prayer is no other than God’s own Spirit dwelling in the hearts of the saints. And as this spirit comes from God, so doth it naturally tend to God in holy breathings and pantings. It naturally leads to God, to converse with him by prayer.
–Jonathan Edwards

Is the Son of God praying in me, or am I dictating to Him?….Prayer is not simply getting things from God, that is a most initial form of prayer; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God. If the Son of God is formed in us by regeneration, He will press forward in front of our common sense and change our attitude to the things about which we pray.
–Oswald Chambers

Whether we think of; or speak to, God, whether we act or suffer for him, all is prayer, when we have no other object than his love, and the desire of pleasing him.

All that a Christian does, even in eating and sleeping, is prayer, when it is done in simplicity, according to the order of God, without either adding to or diminishing from it by his own choice.-John Wesley

One of the requisites of legitimate prayer is repentance. Hence the common declaration of Scripture, that God does not listen to the wicked; that their prayers, as well as their sacrifices, are an abomination to him. For it is right that those who seal up their hearts should find the ears of God closed against them, that those who, by their hardheartedness, provoke his severity should find him inflexible. In Isaiah he thus threatens: “When ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood” (Isaiah 1:15). In like manner, in Jeremiah, “Though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them” (Jer. 11:7, 8, 11Jer. 11:7, 8, 11); because he regards it as the highest insult for the wicked to boast of his covenant while profaning his sacred name by their whole lives. Hence he complains in Isaiah: “This people draw near to me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me; but have removed their heart far from men” (Isaiah 29:13). Indeed, he does not confine this to prayers alone, but declares that he abominates pretense in every part of his service.

To prayer, then, are we indebted for penetrating to those riches which are treasured up for us with our heavenly Father. For there is a kind of intercourse between God and men, by which, having entered the upper sanctuary, they appear before Him and appeal to his promises, that when necessity requires they may learn by experiences that what they believed merely on the authority of his word was not in vain.-Assuredly it is not without cause our heavenly Father declares that our only safety is in calling upon his name, since by it we invoke the presence of his providence to watch over our interests, of his power to sustain us when weak and almost fainting, of his goodness to receive us into favour, though miserably loaded with sin; in fine, call upon him to manifest himself to us in all his perfections.
- John Calvin

“The work of the Spirit, then, is joined to the word of God. But a distinction is made, that we may know that the external word is of no avail by itself. unless animated by the power of the Spirit …All power of action, then, resides in the Spirit himself.”
- John Calvin

Prayer,is an intimate conversation of the pious with God.
–John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960) 3.20.16.

All who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the heart, will certainly be heard, and will receive what they have asked and desired.
–Martin Luther

Prayer is a strong wall and fortress of the church; it is a goodly Christian weapon.
–Martin Luther

Be edified and encouraged in your efforts to persevere in prayer this week.