The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

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СКАЧАТЬ makes the common pebbles of God’s temporal bounties more precious then diamonds; and in spiritual prayer, cuts the diamond, and makes it glisten more. The thing was precious, but I did not know its preciousness until I had sought for it, and sought it long. After a long chase the hunter prizes the animal because he has set his heart upon it and is determined to have it; and yet more truly, after a long hunger he who eats finds more relish in his food. So prayer does sweeten the mercy. Prayer teaches us its preciousness. It is the reading over of the bill, the schedule, the account, before the estate and the properties are themselves transferred. We know the value of the purchase by reading over the will of it in prayer, and when we have groaned out our own expression of its peerless price, it is then that God bestows the benediction upon us. Prayer, therefore, goes before the blessing, because it shows us the value of it.

      19. But doubtless even reason itself suggests that it is only natural that God, the all-good, should give his favours to those who ask. It seems only right that he should expect from us, that we should first ask at his hands, and then he will bestow. It is goodness great enough that his hand is ready to open: surely it is only a little thing that he should say to his people, “For this thing will I be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them.”

      20. III. Let me close BY STIRRING YOU UP TO USE THE HOLY ARE OF PRAYER AS A MEANS OF OBTAINING THE BLESSING. Do you demand of me, and for what shall we pray? The answer is upon my tongue. Pray for yourselves, pray for your families, pray for the Churches, pray for the one great kingdom of our Lord on earth.

      21. Pray for yourselves. Surely you will never lack some subject for intercession. So broad are your needs, so deep are your necessities, that until you are in heaven you will always find room for prayer. Do you need nothing? Then I fear you do not know yourself. Have you no mercy to ask from God? Then I fear you have never had mercies from him, and are yet “in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.” If you are a child of God, your needs will be as numerous as your moments and you will need to have as many prayers as there are hours. Pray that you may be holy, humble, zealous, and patient; pray that you may have communion with Christ, and enter into the banqueting house of his love. Pray for yourself, that you may be an example to others, that you may honour God here, and inherit his kingdom hereafter.

      22. In the next place, pray for your families; for your children. If they are pious, you can still pray for them that their piety may be real, that they may be upheld in their profession. And if they are ungodly, you have a whole fountain of arguments for prayer. As long as you have a child unpardoned, pray for him; as long as you have a child alive who is saved, pray for him, that he may be kept. You have enough reason to pray for those that have proceeded from your own loins. But if you have no cause to do that, pray for your employees. Will you not stoop to that? Then surely you have not stooped to be saved; for he who is saved knows how to pray for everyone. Pray for your employees, that they may serve God, that their life in your business may be of use to them. That is a poor business where the employees are not prayed for. I would not like to be waited upon by one for whom I could not pray. Perhaps the day when this world shall perish will be the day not brightened by a prayer; and perhaps the day when a great misdeed was done by some man, was the day when his friends stopped praying for him. Pray for your households.

      23. And then pray for the Church. Let the minister have a place in your heart. Mention his name at your family altar, and in your closet. You expect him to come before you day after day, to teach you the things of the kingdom, and exhort and stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance. If he is a true minister, there will be work to be done in this matter. He cannot write out his sermon and then read it to you; he does not believe Christ said, “Go and read the gospel to every creature.” Do you know the cares of a minister? Do you know the trouble he has with his own church — how the erring ones do grieve him, how even the right ones do vex his spirit by their infirmities — how, when the church is large, there will always be some great trouble in the hearts of some of his people? And he is the reservoir of all: they come to him with all their grief; he is to “weep with those who weep.” And in the pulpit what is his work? God is my witness, I scarcely ever prepare for my pulpit with pleasure: study for the pulpit is to me the most irksome work in the world. I have never come into this house that I know of with a smile upon mine heart; I may have sometimes gone out with one; but never have I had one when I entered. Preach, preach, twice a day I can and will do; but still there is a travailing in preparation for it, and even the utterance is not always accompanied with joy and gladness; and God knows that if it were not for the good that we trust is to be accomplished by the preaching of the Word, it is no happiness to a man’s life to be well known. It robs him of all comfort to be from morning to night hunted for labour, to have no rest for the sole of his foot or for his brain — to be a great religious hack — to bear every burden — to have people asking, as they do in the country, when they want to get into a cart, “Will it hold it?” — never thinking whether the horse can drag it; to have them asking, “Will you preach at such a place? you are preaching twice, could you not manage to get to such a place, and preach again?” Everyone else has a constitution; the minister has none, until he kills himself and is condemned as imprudent. If you are determined to do your duty in that place to which God has called you, you need the prayers of your people, that you may be able to do the work; and you will need their abundant prayers that you may be sustained in it. I bless God that I have a valiant corps of men, who day without night besiege God’s throne on my behalf. I would speak to you, my bothers and sisters, again, and beseech you, by our loving days that are past, by all the hard fighting that we have had side by side with each other, not to cease to pray now. The time was when in hours of trouble, you and I have bended our knees together in God’s house, and we have prayed to God that he would give us a blessing. You remember how great and severe troubles did roll over our head — how men did ride over us. We went through fire and through water, and now God has brought us into a large place, and so multiplied us, let us not cease to pray. Let us still cry out to the living God, that he may give us a blessings. Oh! may God help me, if you cease to pray for me! Let me know the day, and I must cease to preach. Let me know when you intend to cease your prayers, and I shall cry, “Oh my God, give me this day my tomb, and let me slumber in the dust.”

      24. And lastly, let me bid you pray for the church at large. This is a happy time we live in. A certain race of croaking souls, who are never pleased with anything, are always crying out about the badness of the times. They cry, “Oh! for the good old times!” Why, these are the good old times, time never was so old as it is now. These are the best times. I do think that many an old Puritan would jump out of his grave if he knew what was going on now. If they could have been told of the great movement at Exeter Hall, there is many a man among them who once fought against the Church of England, who would lift his hand to heaven, and cry, “My God, I bless you that I see such a day as this!” In these times there is a breaking down of many of the barriers. The bigots are afraid; they are crying out most desperately, because they think God’s people will soon love each other too well. They are afraid that the trade of persecution will soon be done with, if we begin to be more and more united. So they are making an outcry, and saying, “These are not good times.” But true lovers of God will say they have not lived in better days than these; and they all hopefully look for greater things still. Unless you professors of religion are eminently in earnest in prayer, you will disgrace yourselves by neglecting the finest opportunity that men ever had. I do think that your fathers who lived in days when great men were upon earth, who preached with much power — I do think, if they had not prayed, they would have been as unfaithful as you will be. For now the good ship floats upon a flood tide: sleep now, and you will not cross the bar at the harbour’s mouth. Never did the sun of prosperity seem to shine much more fully on the church during the last hundred years than now. Now is your time; neglect now to sow your seed in this good time of seed sowing; neglect now to reap your harvest in these good days when it is ripe, and darker days may come, and those of peril, when God shall say, “Because they would not cry to me, when I stretched out my hands to bless them, therefore will I put away my hand, and will no more bless them, until again they shall seek me.”

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