Consequently, one should learn from this that when we pray, we are most certainly being heard, just as so far the church has certainly procured peace through prayer and has restrained the Turk together with the pope. Only let us be on our guard lest after we have once begun to pray, we immediately grow weary. But let us seek and let us cast all our care, misfortune, and affliction on God (1 Peter 5:7) and set before Him the examples of every kind of deliverance. Finally let us knock at the door with confidence and with incessant raps. Then we shall experience what James says (5:16): “The prayer of a righteous man has great power”; for it penetrates heaven and earth. God can no longer endure our cries, as is stated in Luke 18:5 about the unjust judge and the widow. But one should not pray only one hour. No, one must cry out and knock. Then you will compel Him to come. Thus I fully believe that if we devote ourselves to prayer earnestly and fervently, we shall prevail upon God to make the Last Day come.

-Luther, AE 4