Introduction

We considered last time the distorted doctrine of prayer that is taught currently in the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) by Prof. Ronald Cammenga. We examined especially his idea of the “sincere desires” of question and answer 116 of the Heidelberg Catechism. In this article we will pick up our critical examination of this distorted doctrine of prayer as it has flooded every corner of the PRC.

This distorted doctrine of prayer featured large in the controversy that led to the formation of the Reformed Protestant Churches (RPC). It was the teaching of Rev. David Overway that prayer is “required in order for us to enjoy God’s grace, in order for us to enjoy His Spirit, His blessing.”¹ Reverend Overway’s teachings were judged by the Protestant Reformed synod to be improper, ambiguous, and as introducing a new purpose for good works; but the false doctrine was never eradicated. Reverend Overway’s doctrine of prayer is exactly what is being spread and spewed out of the PRC today, although some ministers cloak it better than others with beautiful words and true phrases. For God to give his grace and Holy Spirit in one’s consciousness depends upon one’s asking in prayer. In the way of prayer, one receives God’s grace consciously. By means of the activity of prayer, or through prayer, one receives all that one needs from God for body and soul. This teaching is conditional theology. It is a gross distortion of the doctrine of prayer and a departure from the Catechism’s instruction on prayer. It is a sick and twisted doctrine of man.

We will approach the doctrine of prayer using the Catechism’s layout of the doctrine of prayer: first, by properly explaining the necessity of prayer, and second, flowing out of the necessity of prayer, by explaining the principles of all true prayer. May God bless these labors as we seek to recover the true doctrine of prayer that God’s name alone be glorified, and may God make us a people who have understanding of the times.

Chief Part of Thankfulness

In 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 we read, “Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” That praying without ceasing is our entire lives of thanksgiving. We live our whole lives in the Spirit consciously before the face of God in Jesus Christ. We live our lives seeking God’s glory. In that life of prayer there is the activity of prayer, and that activity of prayer is the concern of the Catechism in Lord’s Day 45. Lord’s Day 45 begins by asking the question, why is prayer necessary?

Q. 116. Why is prayer necessary for Christians?

A. Because it is the chief part of thankfulness which God requires of us; and also, because God will give His grace and Holy Spirit to those only who with sincere desires continually ask them of Him, and are thankful for them. (Confessions and Church Order, 134)

The Catechism’s question itself is startling. Why is prayer necessary? Prayer is as necessary for a Christian as it is for a living creature to breathe air. Prayer is not optional. Prayer is essential to the life of the Christian. Prayer is the breath of the soul. If one does not breathe air or if one does not pray, the result will be the same. Prayer is as necessary for the regenerated Christian as food, drink, sleep, and air are necessary for living creatures.

The question of the Catechism is meant to expose us in how little we actually pray. That we need to be taught that prayer is necessary shows that there is something dreadfully wrong with us. We are so carnal and depraved that we have to be taught that it is important for us to breathe. Every time the Catechism is preached through, we have to be taught that prayer is necessary and essential as the breath of our souls. We need to learn about prayer. We need to know its importance in our lives. We need to be told just how carnal we are when it comes to prayer. We need to know how weak we are in prayer and how indifferent to prayer we are by nature. The question itself exposes our wickedness and lack of prayer.

The Catechism then gives its answer that prayer is necessary because it is the chief part of thankfulness. Immediately, the Catechism cuts off Professor Cammenga’s and the PRC’s distorted doctrine of prayer. The fact that the Catechism calls prayer the chief part of thankfulness opposes the use of Lord’s Day 45 by the PRC.

Lord’s Day 45 is in the section of the Catechism on thankfulness. Thankfulness shows itself in a life of good works. Good works are those that “proceed from a true faith, are performed according to the law of God, and to His glory” (Heidelberg Catechism, A 91 in Confessions and Church Order, 122). The activity of any good work cannot obtain from God in any sense. A God-wrought activity cannot obtain a God-wrought blessing. The performance of a good work cannot obtain any blessing of salvation in one’s conscious experience. Good works are not and can never be the means or the way of any part of salvation, because good works are the fruits of faith.

Prayer is a good work. It is the chief good work, yet prayer is still a good work and is not an exception. We must understand prayer from the point of view of Lord’s Day 32. In no sense is the activity of prayer a means unto or the way of receiving something from God. It is not something we do to get something. Thankfulness stands opposed to being a means. Thankfulness is not what man must do first before he gets something from God. Thankfulness is not the God-ordained way to obtain a God-wrought blessing.

Thankfulness is the result of God’s eternal decree. It is the result of election. It is the result of the grace and Holy Spirit of God. Thankfulness is the result of the redemption given in Jesus Christ by his perfect work on the cross. Thankfulness is the result of being renewed by the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Prayer is the result of the blessing of God. The fact that we even pray is itself a blessing of God. He gives our thankfulness to us (Joel 2:14; Eph. 2:10). He foreordained our prayers that we should walk in them. He gives us all our obedience and prayer. God gives his grace and Holy Spirit to his people, and out of that grace flows the chief part of thankfulness.

Grace and Holy Spirit

The Catechism continues its answer of why prayer is necessary for Christians. “And also, because God will give his grace and Holy Spirit to those only who with sincere desires continually ask them of Him, and are thankful for them.” This is the phrase. It is precisely this part of the answer that has been made into a prerequisite and a condition. It is this corruption of the doctrine of prayer that has been spread through the PRC in regard to the experience of forgiveness of sins, the conscious enjoyment of salvation and the covenant, and the conscious experience of God’s grace and Holy Spirit. The truth of this Lord’s Day has been handled violently and deceitfully.

The language of the Catechism must be understood correctly. The Catechism is not teaching that we must pray before God does something in response. It is not teaching first prayer, then grace. It is not teaching that in the way of prayer God grants us his grace and Holy Spirit consciously. It is not teaching the activity of prayer first and by means of prayer God gives a blessing. It is not teaching that man does his part of praying and then God does his part of giving his grace and Holy Spirit. God did not give prayer as a prerequisite for the regenerated Christian to perform before God would give the next installment of salvation in the Christian’s experience. God’s blessing does not rest on our prayers or come in the way of our prayers or by means of our prayers.

The proper way to understand the answer of the Catechism that prayer is necessary “because God will give His grace and Holy Spirit to those only who with sincere desires continually ask them of Him, and are thankful for them,” is that God will have us know and understand how completely, entirely, and wholly dependent we are on him. God would have us understand that we are nothing without him. We cannot take one breath or move one finger apart from God. We can do nothing without him. God causes us to know and understand how thoroughly dependent we are upon his grace and Holy Spirit.

We are utterly empty and destitute. By nature we are blind and ignorant of God the Father. We cannot know his name or the holiness of that name. We cannot bring the kingdom. We cannot do his will. We cannot supply our daily bread. We have no righteousness. We have no holiness. We have no strength to fight against the powers of darkness. We are ignorant and rebellious creatures. We ask God for his grace and Holy Spirit not because we do not have it but because we desire it more and more out of the knowledge of our deep need and lack.

We ask God for his grace and Holy Spirit, and that is the confession that we need grace. The prayer of the child of God can be summarized in three words: I need grace. I am dependent upon that grace entirely. I need grace to pray. I need grace to know God. I need grace for the coming of God’s kingdom. I need grace to do his will. I need grace to assure me of my justification. I need grace for the battle in this spiritual warfare. Prayer is the confession of the child of God that he needs grace. The activity of prayer does not obtain that grace.

The Christian prays out of the knowledge of that deep need and profound sense of lack. We are nothing. We have nothing. We can do nothing. We desire to be filled. We take our little cups to the inexhaustible fountain of all goodness to drink of the goodness of God by faith. We do not go to that fountain to add anything to God. We do not go to God in our prayers as the instruments with which to receive. Prayer is the expression of our emptiness. All of what we lack and need comes from God. God is our fullness, and of his fullness we receive grace for grace. That is the teaching of Reverend Hoeksema in The Triple Knowledge.

Nevertheless, let us never imagine that at any time in the process of our salvation we are first. The opposite is true. God creates in us the need. He creates in us the hunger and thirst after righteousness by His Holy Spirit and grace. He causes us to pray, to ask, to seek, to knock. And while we consciously seek and ask and pray to the God of our salvation, He answers our prayer and fulfills the need and fills us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ forevermore.²

God will not give his grace and Holy Spirit to one who does not ask. Why? Not because prayer is a means and if you do not pray, then you cannot receive from God. But the Catechism gives the answer that if one does not pray, he is unthankful. Why would God give his grace and Holy Spirit to an unthankful man? That man’s confession is that he does not need God’s grace and Holy Spirit. A thankful man is one who prays, and he is thankful because he has received and continues to receive all the blessings of salvation by faith alone in Jesus Christ. That is the significance of the last phrase of answer 116 of the Catechism. It takes away the pretension and discards the notion that prayer is a means.

Prayer Distorted as Means

Professor Cammenga distorts the Catechism’s doctrine of prayer by teaching it as a means.

Then by means of prayer also, we receive God’s grace and Holy Spirit. Prayer, as we are going to see in the coming weeks, is the means by which we receive from God everything that we need. It doesn’t take away from God’s sovereignty, his determination in his will and counsel, to give us whatever it is. But God is pleased—the God who ordains what we will have is pleased to use prayer as the means. God is always a God of means.³

God has not only ordained everything, but he has ordained to do these things in the way of and by means of prayer. You see, God’s decree does not only embrace the end, the goal, the ultimate and eternal goal, let alone the goal of, let us say, someone who is sick getting better. But God has also decreed the means to the goal. The means is prayer.⁴

And Professor Cammenga’s distorted doctrine of prayer as a means is the doctrine of the PRC across the board.

This is the teaching of Rev. E. Guichelaar on Lord’s Day 45:

What this is talking about is the continued enjoyment and the continued conscious experience of God’s grace and Holy Spirit. It’s talking about the knowledge and assurance of the forgiveness of sins and of being righteous through the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ. It’s talking about the joy of salvation, having strong faith, having a certain hope of everlasting life. The child of God loses the enjoyment of these things and will not grow in knowledge and confidence when he’s not praying for God’s grace and for God’s Holy Spirit…

Our God is a God who uses means…And he uses the prayers of his saints as the instruments, as the means, whereby they come to taste and to see that the Lord is good…And God says…“For I am the God who uses means. Do not expect spiritual growth except in the way of asking for it. Prayer determines your spiritual growth.”⁵

This is the teaching of Rev. J. Engelsma on Lord’s Day 45:

The grace that is being referred to here is the grace of God which sustains us consciously throughout our life as regenerated Christians. God is pleased ordinarily to provide us with what we need in the way of our asking those things of him in prayer. We ask, we seek, we knock, and he is pleased to provide.⁶

Reverend Engelsma attempts to hedge against the objection that this is “man-first theology.” Let me be the first to tell him that this is, in fact, “man-first theology.” One can understand the PRC’s use of the phrase in the way of to be by means of or because of, which does in fact make the activity of a prayer a prerequisite for the conscious experience of salvation in the covenant of grace. Man’s activity of prayer is the means for the obtaining of some blessing of God. That is the definition of “man-first theology,” to use Reverend Engelsma’s own words.

This is the teaching of Rev. M. De Boer on Lord’s Day 45:

He is pleased to provide all our needs through prayer. He is pleased to provide what we need through prayer, and that includes even his grace and Holy Spirit…We need God’s grace and Holy Spirit to continue to work in us…He is determined to provide our need in the way of our praying for them.⁷

Throughout this section of the sermon, Reverend De Boer teaches this same thing multiple times, though couched by true and orthodox phrases. The thrust of this section though is that God provides for the needs of his people through prayer or in the way of prayer.

This is the teaching of Prof. B. Huizinga on Lord’s Day 45:

That explains why the Christian desires to pray, and as we pray to God, consciously asking for his grace and Spirit, God is pleased to continue to perform his gracious operations by the Holy Spirit in us in that way of prayer. That’s how God works. God works by means of prayer.⁸

This is the teaching of Rev. R. Barnhill on Lord’s Day 45:

But it is referring to the grace throughout our lives that is applied to us, that grace that we consciously enjoy…In the way of our asking, he provides us with what we need.⁹

This is the teaching of Prof. R. Dykstra on Lord’s Day 45:

That is not conditional theology. Conditional theology teaches that there is something that depends on the man’s activity in order to get something. It depends on his activity. God does not depend on us. Our asking does not earn something. Our asking is not the ground for getting anything. It is simply, this is the way God works. Ask, and you will receive. Ask. That’s what he demands of us. And he promises to give…

This is the way God works. The preaching is the chief means of grace. Sit under the preaching; God will give you grace. Prayer is the way that we go to God for the blessings of salvation.¹⁰

I could keep going, but I do not want to weary the reader, and I have limited space. It would take up an entire issue of Sword and Shield to print everything that I found in a simple search of Protestant Reformed sermons on Lord’s Day 45. The point is that Professor Cammenga’s distorted doctrine of prayer as a means is widespread among Protestant Reformed ministers and leading theologians. There is no safety in the PRC. There is no room to say, “Not my minister. Not my church.”

For the PRC prayer is necessary in order for one to consciously enjoy God’s grace and Holy Spirit. One can have the experience of the covenant by means of the activity of prayer. The teaching of the PRC is prayer first, then grace. Pray, then grace is consciously received. But even after regeneration, the believer has no ability to obtain a God-wrought blessing by means of, in the way of, or through the good work of prayer. What the Protestant Reformed ministers and professors are teaching is conditional theology over against their repeated assertion that this is not conditional theology. It is the theology of Reverend Overway. It is the theology of the Special Committee to Assist Hope. It is the theology of the Protestant Reformed Churches from top to bottom in her clergy.

And the PRC’s false doctrine of prayer lays the foundation for her false doctrine of forgiveness, which is that one must first repent, and then one is forgiven. The party line in the PRC is that one has forgiveness on the basis of Jesus Christ, by means of faith, and in the way of one’s repentance or confession of sin. If you try to tell a member of the PRC that his church teaches forgiveness by means of repenting, he would insist, “No, no, the means is faith. But God requires us to repent before we are forgiven because God is a God of order, and that is the way God works.” But look at what Protestant Reformed ministers and professors are teaching! Prayer is the “means” or “way” or “instrument” by which one receives blessings from God. And when do we repent or confess our sins? In prayer. Thus making our good work of repenting the means to receive blessings of God, particularly the forgiveness of sins in one’s conscious experience.

The PRC’s distorted doctrine of prayer makes God a vending machine. If you input a request through prayer, then God will give you the desired output. J. Gresham Machen, an early contemporary of Herman Hoeksema, had the following to say about that:

There is one desire that is loftier still. It is the desire for God Himself. That desire, too often, we forget. We value God solely for the things that He can do; we make of Him a mere means to an ulterior end. And God refuses to be treated so; such a religion always fails in the hour of need. If we have regarded religion merely as a means of getting things—even lofty and unselfish things—then when the things that have been gotten are destroyed, our faith will fail…God is not content to be an instrument in our hand or a servant at our beck and call. He is not content to minister to the worldly needs of those who care not a bit for Him.¹¹

Faith Is the Means

The PRC have turned the activity of prayer into a means to obtain God’s grace and Holy Spirit in one’s conscious experience. But that is a distorted view of prayer and is conditional theology. The only means that scripture and our Reformed confessions speak of for appropriating the riches of Christ is true faith or saving faith.

Faith is God’s gift (Eph. 2:8–9). Those who have faith are given that gift according to election (Canons of Dordt 1.6). Faith is union with Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 6:17). Faith is a living, organic union with the whole Christ. Being in him, we are blessed “with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). Faith is the means whereby the ungodly are justified (Rom. 4:5).

Our Reformed confessions repeatedly teach that faith is the means. It is the only means whereby we receive every heavenly grace and blessing of salvation.

Belgic Confession article 22:

Those who possess Jesus Christ through faith have complete salvation in Him…

[Faith] is only an instrument with which we embrace Christ our righteousness…Faith is an instrument that keeps us in communion with Him in all His benefits. (Confessions and Church Order, 50–51)

Lord’s Day 7:

Q. 20. Are all men then, as they perished in Adam, saved by Christ?

A. No, only those who are ingrafted into Him, and receive all His benefits, by a true faith. (Confessions and Church Order, 90)

Lord’s Day 20:

Q. 53. What dost thou believe concerning the Holy Ghost?

A. That He is also given me, to make me, by a true faith, partaker of Christ and all His benefits. (Confessions and Church Order, 103)

Canons of Dordt 1.4:

But such as receive it [this gospel], and embrace Jesus Christ the Savior by a true and living faith… (Confessions and Church Order, 155)

In Lord’s Day 45 all these concepts are taught about faith. The “only” in answer 116 refers to election. Only the elect, regenerated child of God prays, as he is the only one given faith. He is the only one who must pray, can pray, may pray, and will pray.

The “sincere desires” is the Spirit of Jesus Christ as he dwells in the heart of the believer. The Holy Spirit is the bond of faith that unites the elect child of God to Jesus Christ and brings the elect child as a rational, moral creature into conscious communion with Jesus Christ. And because faith is the Holy Spirit, then it is the Holy Spirit who is praying for more of God’s grace and more of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Of God in Christ through the Spirit, we receive grace for grace.

The “continually” is the unbroken fellowship of that faith. Faith is in constant communion with Jesus Christ and all his heavenly graces. “In sweet communion, Lord, with Thee I constantly abide.” The first verse of psalter 203 is a versification of Psalm 73:23, which reads, “Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand.” This unbroken communion is wholly ascribed to the sovereign grace of God.

Our activities of prayer cannot be the means. That teaching would flatly contradict the teaching of scripture and the confessions that faith is the means. A good work, any good work, even the chief good work, can never be a means to receive something from God. That is the truth of the Reformed faith. Prayer does not avail a thing as far as our reception of heavenly graces. If our prayers were the means to obtain the conscious reception of grace and the Holy Spirit, it would be better if we never prayed. The simple understanding of prayer is that it is the fruit of faith. Prayer proceeds out of faith as a good work and therefore cannot be a means.

Preaching, Prayer, and Singing

Professor Cammenga and Professor Dykstra make an interesting comparison between prayer and the preaching of the gospel. In Professor Cammenga’s defense of his distorted doctrine of prayer as a means, he begins listing various examples throughout scripture.

God had determined to save the Ninevites, but God used the preaching of the word through Jonah the prophet to save them. God had decreed that Daniel would survive being cast into the lion’s den, but God used Daniel’s prayers to shut the mouths of those lions. Hezekiah—“Put your house in order; you are going to die”—before he had a male heir so that the line of David would be continued, besought God in tears to spare his life for the sake of the seed. God heard his prayers and granted him fifteen more years. God uses prayer as the means to give us what we need.¹²

Daniel’s prayer did not stop the mouths of those lions. Nor did Hezekiah’s prayer add fifteen years to his life.

This is what John Calvin remarks about these two events in his commentary on Hebrews 11:33:

It was by faith that David so many times returned home as a conqueror; that Hezekiah recovered from his sickness; that Daniel came forth safe and untouched from the lions’ den, and that his friends walked in a burning furnace as cheerfully as on a pleasant meadow. Since all these things were done by faith, we must feel convinced, that in no other way than by faith is God’s goodness and bounty to be communicated to us.¹³

The comparison that Professor Cammenga makes between the preaching of the gospel as the means of grace and the prayers of the saints as a means to receive God’s grace and Holy Spirit is specious. Our Reformed confessions know of only two means of grace, namely, the preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments (Lord’s Day 25; Belgic Confession 33). The Westminster Larger Catechism, which confession neither the PRC or the RPC holds to, does include prayer as a means of grace, but in Reformed theology the only means of grace proper are the preaching of the gospel and the sacraments.¹⁴

Professor Dykstra also makes the same error as Professor Cammenga, but now in defense of the statement that God is a God of means.

This is the way God works. The preaching is the chief means of grace. Sit under the preaching; God will give you grace. Prayer is the way that we go to God for the blessings of salvation.¹⁵

God confers grace by the preaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments by means of a true faith. Prayer is not a means, and it should not be compared to the work of God in the gospel. Not the activity of prayer but the gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16).

Professor Cammenga and Professor Dykstra bring up the preaching of the gospel as a means of grace in connection with prayer. Rev. A. Lanning is doing the same thing with regard to singing the psalms.

The preaching of the gospel is the chief means of grace. The sacraments also are a means of grace added to the gospel to teach God’s people his work. But now added to that is also the singing of the church.¹⁶

Our Reformed confessions combine prayer and singing as essentially one element of worship (Lord’s Day 38). Singing and prayer are both the speech of a child of God. Prayer and singing are both good works. Singing as the speech of the believer could also be considered properly as the chief part of thankfulness. Reverend Lanning, Professor Cammenga, and Professor Dykstra are striving to make prayer and singing a means of some sort of grace in addition to the preaching and the sacraments. The appeal is made to the means of grace in defense of a distorted doctrine of praying and a distorted doctrine of singing. These men have no business calling themselves Reformed.

Principles of Prayer

Flowing out of the necessity of prayer are the requisites or principles of prayer. They are the governing principles of all true prayer. These requirements are not things that we have to do in order to have an acceptable prayer. They are not requirements that we do or perform in a certain way to get something from God or that God’s hearing our prayer depends upon these three steps. It is important to know that the Catechism is giving instruction to the ignorant and the blind. The Catechism is exposing us again that we do not know how to pray.

The governing principles of true prayer are given in question and answer 117.

Q. 117. What are the requisites of that prayer which is acceptable to God and which He will hear?

A. First, that we from the heart pray to the one true God only, who hath manifested Himself in His word, for all things He hath commanded us to ask of Him; secondly, that we rightly and thoroughly know our need and misery, that so we may deeply humble ourselves in the presence of His divine majesty; thirdly, that we be fully persuaded that He, notwithstanding that we are unworthy of it, will, for the sake of Christ our Lord, certainly hear our prayer, as He has promised in His word. (Confessions and Church Order, 134–35)

The three principles of all true prayer can be easily summarized. God is everything. Man is nothing. And God will certainly hear us, unworthy of ourselves, for the sake of Jesus Christ alone. Even more simple than that, we can say that the principle of prayer is true faith. All prayer proceeds from faith. True prayer is the fruit of faith. We could say that the Catechism is teaching us the attitude of faith in prayer.

Faith knows God rightly. Faith knows how nothing and how miserable we are, that we are totally depraved and entirely carnal, sold unto sin until the perfection of the kingdom (Rom. 7:14). Faith clings to Jesus Christ for his heavenly graces of forgiveness, eternal righteousness, and holiness. Faith comes before God and draws near to him. Faith asks of God for all things necessary for body and soul. Faith knows how to pray. We do not know how to pray or what to pray for, but faith knows because faith is joined to Jesus Christ and receives his life.

To elaborate, the first principle of prayer is that we pray to the one true God only. We pray to the God who has revealed himself in his word. Our prayers are guided by a right knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ as Christ is revealed in the scriptures. Faith stands upon and is convicted of the word of God. We come before that one true God, who will surely hear and answer his people. We come before him as our God on the basis of Christ’s work as the servant of Jehovah. He is the mediator in whom God is pleased to reveal himself as gracious, merciful, and righteous. And being in Christ, we are declared righteous and have all his heavenly graces poured out upon us by the operation of the Holy Spirit.

The second principle of prayer flows naturally out of the first. We must “rightly and thoroughly know our need and misery, that so we may deeply humble ourselves.” We cannot know how utterly miserable and nothing we are unless we know the one true God only. Faith knows and understands who we are by nature. Faith understands that we are nothing, less than nothing, and vanity (Isa. 40:17). We are not something. We transgress every law of God. We sin endlessly. We rebel against God even after we are given his grace and Holy Spirit. We have no claim to any of God’s gifts. We have no right to one sip of water or one breath of air; and certainly then, we have no right to perfect righteousness and eternal life. We come as beggars. We come before God dead in ourselves. We come having nothing and in great need of absolutely everything from God.

We are humbled before him. It is from this deep humility that we cry out to God. We cannot cry out to him apart from that position. We have an infinite debt. Our throats are parched, and only God’s goodness can slake that inexhaustible thirst. God hears the cry of the man who has nothing. God hears the man who is ungodly. God hears the man who is a worm, grass, and has no strength. God does not hear the man who has something. God does not hear the hypocrite who is conceited in his own self-righteousness. That hypocrite has some strength of himself. He is not nothing. That is why God does not hear the prayer of the impenitent sinner. He is a man who is still something. He is a man who has not been broken by his sin. He is a man who does not have faith.

The third principle of all true prayer is that it is fully persuaded. This is again pointing to a true faith. Faith knows the only true God, faith is humbled before his divine majesty, and faith is fully persuaded. This means that we do not come with any of our good works, even the activity of prayer itself, as the means for us to obtain with God. As totally depraved sinners we pollute that good prayer that proceeds from faith as soon as the prayer touches our flesh. We are not good. We have no obedience or anything good to bring to God.

Faith is fully persuaded that our own unworthiness and wickedness cannot hinder God from hearing our prayers. God does not hear us because we prayed in a certain way, followed the right steps, or had enough emotion and feeling. The living God hears us for Christ’s sake. God hears us for Christ’s perfect work on the cross.

Our prayers are not perfect. We are weak and carnal and are often indifferent to prayer as the breath of the soul. But Christ’s prayers were perfect. He prays perfectly as our intercessor before the throne of God, presenting his perfect work constantly before God’s face. Our mediator beseeches God for all the blessings of the covenant, including our experience of the covenant and including the blessings of God’s grace and Holy Spirit in our consciousness.

And with that knowledge and confidence of faith; receiving all the blessings of salvation; by the power of the Holy Spirit living in his heart, the child of God prays! He cannot not pray, for as an elect child of God regenerated by the Holy Spirit and renewed unto good works, his soul must breathe prayers to God just as surely as his lungs breathe air. That is why prayer is necessary for the Christian.

Faith is fully persuaded of Jesus Christ. There may be doubts in our flesh, but there is no doubt in faith. Faith understands and knows; faith believes and trusts in God alone. Faith is assurance, and that assurance does not rest on the activities of faith but on the one true God. Faith’s assurance rests on the promise of God in Jesus Christ alone. God is everything, man is nothing, and God will hear us for the sake of Jesus Christ alone.

Conclusion

Prayer is the chief part of thankfulness. Prayer is never a means. Thankfulness stands opposed to the idea of prayer as a means. It is this distorted doctrine of prayer that has found deep roots in the PRC. This concludes this series on that distorted doctrine of prayer. May the Lord of hosts strengthen us in the battle against that distorted, man-centered doctrine.

“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (Phil. 4:6).