Let no man mistake the order of the Spirit’s work. It is by the hearing of faith that the Spirit comes. When the Word is lifted up in the assembly, when the sinner sits under the sound of the Gospel and the preacher unfolds Christ crucified, there is the chosen hour for the dead to hear the voice of the Son of God and live. Pray then, and pray with importunity, that your beloved ones may be brought under that sound. Do not keep them from the place where the Word echoes, for faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. If the Word seems to fall upon deaf ears, remember that the Spirit who inspired the Scripture is able to apply it with sharp, two-edged power. Our part is to cry mightily to God that He would draw them; Christ’s promise in John six and forty-four remains the solid ground of our pleading. None come except the Father draw them, but the Father delights to do so by the trumpet blast of the entrusted Gospel.
The hearing must be a personal hearing. Not a daughter hiding behind a mother’s faith, nor a husband leaning upon a wife’s piety. No, each soul must listen for itself, as though alone in the vast congregation, the Word aimed directly at its own conscience. I charge you, pray for this: that as the Word is preached, a divine solitude will settle upon every unconverted heart in the pew, and they shall hear the messenger as though he were sent only to them with the tidings of salvation. And what is it they must hear? Nothing less than the Revelation of the Messiah by the Father. Flesh and blood cannot reveal Jesus; it is the work of our Father in heaven. All the logic and earnestness of the preacher cannot pierce the darkness until the Holy Spirit floods the mind with light. Seek, therefore, this anointing from the Anointed One. Plead the promise of the Spirit who teaches all things, who convinces of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, and who takes the things of Christ and shows them unto men.
The hearing that saves is the receptive faith. It is the penniless hand held out, the empty cup placed beneath the flowing stream. So let your requests be shaped not merely for their bodily presence in the assembly, though that is to be desired with all your heart, but for the inner miracle of a believing heart. Pray that they will cease their idle picking and choosing among the doctrines of the Word, for a faith that revises Scripture to suit its own taste is no faith in God at all. Pray rather that with holy fear, like Noah, they will tremble at the word of judgment that the word of mercy may be sweet. Their salvation is of the Lord, from its first breathing of desire to its final triumphant shout. The ultimate perfection is His work, not ours. We should quake with hopelessness if a single thread of the working lay in our own fingers. Christ has declared from the tree, "It is finished." That is His dying word for His Church, and for every soul that shall be saved. The atonement is complete, the debt is paid, the head of the dragon is broken. Therefore pray with a faith that grasps the finished work and expects the Spirit to apply it with sovereign power.
Yearn not for a repentance born of mere terror, a legal sorrow that has no trace of submission, no touch of faith, no breath of love. The judgments of Providence may alarm and fill the house of God with anxious inquirers, but pain and sickness are not evangelists; they cannot give life. Seek instead that godly sorrow which is the work of the Spirit, a true loathing of sin because it is against a holy and loving God. Cry out to the great Advocate in glory, who ever liveth to intercede, that their faith fail not in the hour of sifting. A mustard-seed faith, a trembling touch of Christ’s hem, is enough to make them whole, for virtue flows from Him, and Him alone. But you must also hold fast the name of Christ yourself, for the faith that does not endure may never have been a living faith at all. Let your own unwavering confession be a witness, yet never trust in it, for only the Spirit can beget the Spirit’s fruit in another. Plead His own promise; He wills not the death of a sinner. He would have all men saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Lay hold of that word and refuse to let Him go. The prayer of faith receives what it asks, because it asks according to His will.