One of the strangest and saddest stories of the Old Testament history is that of Samson. It is also one of the most instructive. He was by far the most remarkable man of his day. The grandest opportunities were open to him, but after striking temporary victories, his life ended in tragic failure – all through his own inexcusable folly.

Time and again it is said of him that "the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him," and in the power of that Spirit

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of him.” 1 John 5:14, 15

Please notice carefully exactly what God tells us in this passage. Here we are told that there is a way in which certain people can pray so as not only to get the very thing that they ask, but also to know before they actually get it, that God has heard their prayer and that therefore the thing which they have asked

My dear Friends,

The Scriptures speak of several kinds of prayer. There is intercession and there is supplication, there is labor in prayer and there is the prayer of faith; all perhaps the same fundamentally, but they present various aspects of this great and wonderful theme. It would not be unprofitable to study the differences between these various scriptural terms. . . .

Speaking generally, however, there is a distinction we all know; it is the distinction between general prayer and definite prayer.

The first missionary to the Lisu people of the Upper Salween was going through a deep testing. It was not the privation, nor the loneliness of this isolated outpost, nor the rigors of scaling the steep mountain walls to find tribal settlements, nor even the difficulty of making himself at home with these utterly primitive folk-no, none of these things troubled him. But the lack of abiding fruit in the hearts of the Lisu people-this was his constant burden. "Give me Lisu converts," he cried from the heart, "and I can truly say I will be happy even in a pigsty."