The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

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      4. First, this morning, I shall try to explain the prayer; then I shall labour as God shall enable me, to inflame the hearts of all Christian men to desire the object of this prayer; then offer a word or two of counsel as to the pursuit of the object here spoken of; and conclude by noticing the promise to buoy our hopes up. By and by “the earth shall be filled with his glory.”

      5. I. First, then, let me EXPLAIN THE PRAYER. It is a large prayer — a massive one. A prayer for a city needs a stretch of faith; indeed, there are times when a prayer for one man is enough to stagger our belief; for we can scarcely think that God will hear us for even that one. But how great this prayer is! how comprehensive! “Let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen.” It does not exempt one single country, however trodden under the foot of superstition; it does not leave out one single nation, however abandoned. For the cannibal as well as for the civilised, for the man that grasps the tomahawk as well as for the man who bends his knee in supplication, this prayer is uttered, “Let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen and Amen.”

      6. Let me just very briefly note what I believe the psalmist meant. He desired that the true religion of God might be sent into every country. Looking from that point of view, as we utter this prayer, what a multitude of thoughts rush into our minds! Lo, over there we see the hoary systems of ancient superstition; we behold multitudes bowing down before Buddha and Brahma, and paying their adorations to idols that are not gods: we pray for them, that they may cease to be idolaters, and that God’s name may be known among them. Over there we see the crescent, gleaming with a pale and sickly light, and we pray that the followers of Mohammed may bow themselves before the cross, renounce the scimitar, and return to the one who loved them, casting away all the uncleanness and filthiness of their former religion. We see over there the scarlet woman on the seven hills, and we include her in our prayer; we pray that God may cast down Rome; that he may overturn her deep, hell rooted foundations, and may cause her tyranny over the nations to cease, that she may no more be drunk with the blood of the slain, and no more with her idolatries and witchcrafts lead the nations astray. We include her in our supplications. We look on nations that are almost too debased to be included in the roll of mankind; we see the Hottentot in his kraal, {fenced village} the Bushman and the Bechuana, and we put up our prayer for these: “Let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen and Amen.” Let Africa’s centre, once thought to be barren but now discovered to be glorious in fertility, become fertile also in works of grace; let the regions from where our black brethren have been driven to slavery become the homes of blessedness, and the regions of God’s praise. We cast our eye to other regions, where the scalp is still at the Indian’s girdle, where still they wash their hands in blood and delight themselves in murder; or we look to that huge empire of China, and we see the myriads still lost in infidelity, and a partial idolatry, which is consuming them and destroying them, and we pray, “Let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen.” Yes, it is a great prayer, but we mean it. We are praying against Juggernaut, and against Buddha, and against every form and fashion of false religion; we are crying against antichrist, and we are praying that the day may come when every temple shall be dismantled, when every shrine shall be left poor as poverty, and when there shall be no temple but the temple of the Lord God of Hosts, and when no song shall be sung but the song of “Hallelujah; to the one who loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood.”

      7. But we mean more than this. We ask not merely the nominal Christianity of any country, but the conversion of every family in every country. “Let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen.” Is that wish too great, too high? Are we too sanguine in our expectations? No; “The knowledge of the Lord” is to “cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea,” and that is entirely. We do not wish to see dry places here and there; but as the deep foundations of the depths are covered with the sea, so we wish that every nation may be covered with God’s truth. And so we pray that every family may receive it; yes, we pray that every household may have its morning and its evening prayer; we pray that every family may be brought up in the fear of the Lord, that every child may, on its mother’s knee, say, “Our Father,” and that the answer may come to the infant’s prayer, “Your kingdom come.” Yes, we ask from God that every house may be like the tents of Judah, consecrated to God; we ask that even the kraal of the Hottentot may become a synagogue for God’s praise. Our desire is, that man may become so holy, that every meal may become a eucharist, and every cup a chalice, and every garment a priestly vestment, and that all their labours may be consecrated to the Lord. We are bound to expect it, for it is said, “Even the bells upon the horses shall be holiness to the Lord, and even the pots in the Lord’s house shall be like the bowls before the altar.”

      8. But, we go further than that. We do not ask merely for household conversion, but for the individual salvation of every being existing. “Let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen.” Should there be one heart that does not beat in God’s praise, or one lip that is dumb in the melody of thanksgiving, then there would be yet a spot left which would not be filled with God’s praise, and that one left unconverted would blot and blur the whole great work of filling the earth with God’s glory. A missionary once said, and said truly, that if all the people in the world were converted, except one man in Siberia, it would be worth while for all the Christians in England to make a pilgrimage to Siberia, if that man’s salvation could not be accomplished in any other way. And so it would. The salvation of one soul is unutterably precious, and when we offer this prayer we exclude no one. We pray that the atheist, the blasphemer, the hardened rebel, the profligate, may each be filled with God’s glory; and then we ask for mercy for the whole earth; we do not leave out so much as one, but so hope and expect the day when all mankind shall bow at the Saviour’s feet, when every hand shall bring tribute, every lip a song, and every eye shall speak its gladness and its praise. This I believe to be the psalmist’s prayer — that every man might be converted, and that in fact everywhere, in every heart and conscience, God might reign without a rival, Lord paramount over the great wide world.

      9. II. Well, now, I am going, in the second place, to try to STIR YOU UP, my brethren, to desire this great, this wonderful thing for which David prayed. Oh! for the rough and burning eloquence of the hermit of old, who stirred the nations of Europe to battle for the cross! I would to God this morning I could speak as he did, when the multitude were gathered together, or, like that bishop of the church, who followed him, who addressed the mighty multitudes with such burning words of fiery eloquence, that at last they heaved to and fro with waves of excitement, and every man, springing to his feet and grasping his sword cried, “Deus vult” “The Lord wills it,” and rushed forward to battle and to victory. In a higher and holier sense I preach the crusade today, not as a hermit, but as God’s preacher, I come forth to stir you up, men and brethren, to desire and seek after this great and highest wish of the faithful, that the whole earth might be filled with his glory. And how shall I stir you up except by leading you to one or two contemplations?

      10. First, I beseech you, contemplate the majesty of God; or rather, since I am unable to help you to do that just now, let me remind you of seasons when you have in some measure grasped the thought of his divinity. Have you never at night gazed upon the starry orbs, with the thought that God was the Maker of them all, until your soul was steeped in reverent adoration, and you bowed your head with wonder and with praise, and said, “Great God! how infinite are you?” Have you never, in looking upon God’s pure earth, when you have seen the mountains, and the clouds, and the rivers, and the floods, said —

      These are your glorious works, Parent of good,

      Almighty! Yours this universal frame,

      Thus wondrous fair: yourself how wondrous then?

      Oh! I think you must have had some glowing bursts of devotion, somewhat like that burst of Coleridge in his hymn from the valley of Chamounix; or, like that of СКАЧАТЬ