Page 65 - Living Epistles

regard, and have shared it with a number of people over the years. In 1880 he
preached a sermon where he shared the following:

Had it been left to us to make promises concerning prayer, I do not know
that you or I could have done any more than say, “Ask, and ye shall receive.”
Yet, while the promise is so full, so deep, so broad, so precious in every way,
we have here, as becomes us with other parts of the word of God, to compare
Scripture with Scripture, because in other parts additions are made, or
conditions are given, which, if we neglect, will hinder our getting the full
benefit of prayer.

George Muller went on to detail a number of conditions that were attached to
the simple “Ask, and ye shall receive.” First, our petitions must be
according to the will of God as is revealed in I John 5:14.

I John 5:14
And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask
anything according to His will, He hears us.

Mr. Muller shared in his autobiographical work that he would discipline his
soul until it entered into a state of rest whenever he was considering some
work of God, or the expansion of some work. He said he would not trust
himself to discern the voice and will of God until he was assured in his soul
that he would be equally as content to hear God say “No” to a matter as he
would be to hear God say “Yes.” At the very beginning of this work, on
November 28, 1835, he wrote the following in his daily journal.

I have been, every day this week, very much in prayer concerning the orphan
house, chiefly entreating the Lord to take away every thought concerning it out
of my mind if the matter be not of Him; and have also repeatedly examined
my heart concerning my motives in the matter. But I have been more and
more confirmed that it is of God.

George Muller did begin the orphan house soon afterwards, and God kept the
work small for the first ten years. During the period from 1835 until 1845 he
had never built an orphan house. The houses needed to keep the children were
rented quarters. As many as 100 orphans and their care-givers resided
together in a few houses that were all close in proximity in Bristol, England.

The record of these ten years is most enlightening for those who desire to