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    How to Pray
    How to Pray
    How to Pray
    Ebook102 pages1 hour

    How to Pray

    By R.A. Torrey and Rosalie De Rosset

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    "The intelligent child of God must be driven to say, 'I must pray, pray, pray. I must put all my energy and all my heart into prayer. Whatever else I do, I must pray.'"

    Stunning and forthright, R.A. Torrey's "little book on prayer" is a reflection of the writer who once had it said about him, "One wonders if there has ever lived a man who did so many things well for Christ."

    Torrey deals with the key elements of life-changing prayer, such as praying in the Spirit, abiding in Christ, obstacles to prayer, the best times to pray, seeking revival through prayer, and more. Torrey outlines a practical strategy for living life in conversation with God.

    Moody Classics
    Of all the factors influencing our spiritual growth and development, pivotal books play a key role. Learning from those who have walked the path and fought the fight brings wisdom and strengthens resolve. And hearing the familiar chords of kingdom living sung by voices from other times can penetrate cultural barriers that limit our allegiance to the King. To this end, Moody Publishers is honored to introduce the first six volumes in what is to be an ongoing series of spiritual classics. Selected for their enduring influence and timeless perspective, these new editions promise to shape the lives of spiritual pilgrims for generations to come.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMoody Publishers
    Release dateOct 1, 2007
    ISBN9780802480521
    Author

    R.A. Torrey

    RUBEN ARCHER TORREY (1856-1928), educated at Yale University and Divinity School, was renowned as an educator, a pastor, a world evangelist and an author. He pastored Moody Memorial Church in Chicago, was the superintendent of Moody Bible Institute for nineteen years, and served as the dean of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles from 1911 to 1924, when he retired to embark upon full time evangelistic campaigns around the world. Mr. Torrey wrote more than forty books including How to Pray and How to Promote and Conduct a Successful Revival. Mr. Torrey was married to Clara and together they had five children.

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    4.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Book was short, concise and blog by. Anyone who needs to understand prayer should read this book
    • 5/5
      A treasure. There are passionate teaching, Biblical ground and empirical Evidences.

    Book preview

    How to Pray - R.A. Torrey

    About

    INTRODUCTION

    How to Pray

    by Reuben Archer Torrey

    THE DEVIL LAUGHS AS HE LOOKS AT THE CHURCH TODAY AND SAYS TO HIMSELF, YOU CAN HAVE YOUR SUNDAY SCHOOLS AND YOUR YOUNG PEOPLE’S SOCIETIES, YOUR YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS AND YOUR WOMEN’S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNIONS, YOUR INSTITUTIONAL CHURCHES AND YOUR INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS, AND YOUR BOYS’ BRIGADES, YOUR GRAND CHOIRS AND YOUR FINE ORGANS, YOUR BRILLIANT PREACHERS AND YOUR REVIVAL EFFORTS TOO, IF YOU DON’T BRING THE POWER OF ALMIGHTY GOD INTO THEM BY EARNEST, PERSISTENT, BELIEVING MIGHTY PRAYER.

    —R. A. Torrey, How to Pray

    I HAVE SPENT the last three decades of my life reading books of prayers and on prayer, books of all kinds, from old to new, from classic to popular, from small to large. These books line the shelf of one of my bookcases. I feel affectionate, even drawn to them as I walk by. I often lift one of them and read a familiar passage, one that turned on a light in a dark hallway of prayerlessness or reminded me of the rewards of seeking God in a disciplined way. I, like so many Christians past and present, have always wanted to unravel the mystery of prayer, to fathom what it means to be in touch with God, to hear His voice, to feel His presence, to unlock the door to answered prayer, to understand what it means to ask of Him appropriately.

    Nothing about my journey through these books or my experience with prayer has been particularly smooth. In the midst of hardship, I have prayed more easily, desperate for God’s intervention, eager to know His love. When the hardship passes, I have often grown lethargic in my lack of immediate need. Or, if conflict and disappointment have come too often as the years went on, I have felt tired as I faced what seemed to be the silence of God. These are familiar stories for many people. Always, however, I remain curious, drawn by the necessity of prayer, not only by its imperative for any serious Christian but also aware of its role in spiritual survival.

    Somehow in all my reading I missed R. A. Torrey’s little classic, How to Pray; in fact, I’m not sure I had even heard of it until it was given to me. In a world full of books, especially Christian books, on every subject imaginable, particularly on prayer, this one is easy to miss or even dismiss because of its age and size. And R. A. Torrey, important as he was in his time as an evangelist, pastor, educator, and writer, has been gone for nearly eighty years with only a building here or a book there to remind the thoughtful or well-informed person of his legacy.

    But what a legacy it was and is. One biographer wrote, One wonders if there has ever lived a man who did so many things well for Christ. These things included writing forty books on topics like the Holy Spirit, prayer, salvation, soul winning, revival, and evangelism, not to mention helps on international Sunday school lessons and lectures on books of the Bible. His book How to Promote and Conduct a Successful Revival (1901) is considered one of the best books on personal and mass evangelism ever written. He was, finally, a man who excelled in four areas—as an educator, a pastor, a world evangelist, and an author.

    R. A. Torrey was born in 1856 to New York City corporation lawyer and banker Reuben Torrey and his wife, Elizabeth, reportedly people of refinement who eventually lost their fortune. While his parents respected religious habits like church attendance, they did not teach their family spiritual disciplines. Consequently, R. A. Torrey’s journey to Christ was uneven and reluctant. Having once read a book in the attic about being a Christian and intuiting strongly that God might make him a preacher instead of a lawyer, he determined not to go that direction. A brilliant thinker, Torrey enrolled as a student at Yale University when he was fifteen and went through a time of scholastic skepticism.

    One night he dreamed his mother appeared to him as an angel inviting him to preach; subsequently, he had the urge to commit suicide but was unable to find a sharp object to use. While still contemplating the act, he had a powerful urge to pray, and kneeling by his bed, he asked the Lord to save him. His words reportedly were, Oh God, deliver me from this burden—I’ll even preach. His mother, as the story goes, was compelled at that very time to pray for her son. Filled with peace he went to bed, and in the spring of 1875 he made a public profession of faith and entered Yale Divinity School.

    In a divinely ironic happenstance, while at Yale, Torrey was introduced to the powerful preaching of the unconventional and formally uneducated Dwight L. Moody. Two things he heard Moody say became central to his life. In answer to the question of how to win people to Jesus, Moody replied in his inimitable way, Go at it! That’s the best way to learn. Torrey did just that, using a very unusual method. He would place a Bible in the hands of the interested individual and have him read a passage, after which he asked the person questions about the words and phrases in that passage. Moody also said, Faith can do anything, a principle Torrey came to live by.

    Torrey went on to study at major German universities and though briefly falling under the spell of German higher criticism, he came back to conservative doctrine and became a staunch foe of liberalism. Having been earlier ordained in the Congregational church and having served as a minister, he pastored two churches when he returned to the States. He came to rely on George Mueller’s motto pray through and accepted only freewill offerings for a salary. He wrote, We got everything from God. I was never more serene in my life.

    In 1889, Torrey, at Moody’s invitation, became the first superintendent of the Chicago Evangelization Society (later Moody Bible Institute), where he remained until 1908. The early success of the institute is more often attributed to Torrey than to any other individual; he laid the foundation for the curriculum and the practical Christian work program.

    All his gifts and training seemed to have come together there due to his unusual ability to both exposit the Bible and to make it come alive to a popular audience or in a classroom. Students marveled at his teaching, and his habit of persistent prayer was renowned. According to one of the many stories told about Torrey, a student went to Torrey’s office with a particular need; after they prayed together, a pool of tears appeared on the floor where Torrey had been kneeling.

    Such a practice of and passion for prayer is what gives credibility and freshness to this little book. On the first page the reader is gripped by the uncompromising mandate that the intelligent child of God must be driven to say, I must pray, pray, pray. I must put all my energy and all my heart into prayer. Whatever else I do, I must pray. How often have I thought the same thing, and how seldom have I failed to pray things through, and instead let go and became drowsy and quit. How right he is to wish for all of us that we become sleepless unto prayer … earnest, constant, persistent, overcoming … because as he so aptly notes succinctly, there is a devil.

    Perhaps the greatest books on prayer are by those who are both spiritually intuitive and psychologically astute. Torrey is both, the latter obvious when he asks his reader, "Do you take enough leisure for prayer to actually get

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