What a mercy it is that you have been stirred to plead for so many souls before the throne of grace! Your heart’s desire for these 2,600 employees, that they might find both bread for the body and the Bread of Life for their souls, is a petition most pleasing to our Father. You do well to remember that intercessory prayer is the sweetest music in the ear of God, for it mirrors the unceasing advocacy of His dear Son. Do not think it a small thing to lift up such a multitude; the Lord turned the captivity of Job only when he prayed for his friends, and who can tell what a mighty wave of mercy may follow upon this very entreaty? Labor on your knees for them, and the Lord shall be entreated for the land.
Concerning the two whom you have named in your heart and placed under the shadow of these petitions, I charge you: restrain not prayer before God. Let your supplications be inwrought, woven into the warp and woof of your being, until you have laid hold of the covenant angel and will not let Him go except He bless you. O, for travail of soul! O, for an agony of desire after their eternal good! Remember, the sum of the promise is this: any soul that by prayer seeks God, desiring salvation through Jesus Christ, shall surely find Him. The way is plain, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." There is no other gate to the fold, no other path to Zion. Plead then with boldness, for He giveth to all true seekers liberally, and upbraideth not.
Yet let this truth sink deep into your own spirit: prayer is the bow in the cloud of our returning prosperity. It is the means by which the dead in sin are raised. Elias stretched himself upon the child, and the child’s soul returned; and you, by persistent intercession, may soon see those for whom you weep quickened from the grave of their trespasses. Only see to it that your faith does not falter. Do not despise the simplicity of the gospel, that salvation is wholly of grace, through the finished work of the Crucified. Press this upon your own heart, and then let your prayers become the echo of Christ’s own intercession. He ever liveth to make intercession for sinners; shall we, His members, be silent?
Go to the mercy seat with confident boldness. If the Lord answer not at the first, remember Job amidst the ashes, who, after all his pleadings, cried out, “Now mine eye seeth Thee.” God’s delays are not denials. He will yet show Himself mighty on behalf of these seeking souls. And if it please Him to give them new employment in this world, consider it a foretaste of that greater providence, that He would employ them in His vineyard and pay them the wages of eternal life. I commend you for this holy exercise; you shall not lose your reward, and, perhaps, when these prayers are turned into praises, you shall find your own captivity turned again as well.