God's Answer to Persistent Prayer
(No. 3376)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1913.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JULY 2,
1868.
"There is a sound of abundance of rain." 1 Kings 18:41.
FROM the narrative we may learn that things can never be so bad but
what God can bring deliverance in His own time. The country had been
parched in Palestine for three years. Travelers in the East will tell
you how brown and burned that country looks at all times, but how it
must have appeared when the clouds cleaved together and all the
pastures were turned to dust, I can scarcely conceive. It must have
been a terrible and piteous sight when the cattle had perished and the
people were ready to die through famine and hunger. Yet, bad as it was,
when the clouds had long ago vanished, when the children of three years
old did not know what a drop of rain meant, when the skies seemed to be
as brass above the heads of poor tortured mortals, then it was that the
word of God came to Elijah, saying, "There shall yet be rain." Courage,
then! If the times should be full of danger, if there should be
forebodings in the hearts of the bravest, if infidelity should threaten
to put out the light of the Gospel, or if Romanism should seem to blot
out the name of Christ from under Heaven, yet God can still appear! And
if any one Church is left and the Lord commands the clouds that they
rain no rain upon her, her hedges be broken down, the wild boars out of
the woods waste her and she seem to be utterly left, yet at the last
hour of the day, when her hope all but expires, Jehovah, her Friend,
may come to help her! And so with us personally–if we are brought to
the last handful of meal in the barrel and the last drop of oil in the
cruse–if we are brought so low that now it seems relief would come too
late, or could not possibly come at all, the Lord, who has His way in
the whirlwind and who makes the clouds the dust of His feet, can now
come from above! On cherubim and seraphim, right royally can He descend
in speedy flight and bring help to His needy servants! Let us,
therefore, drive despair away! There is no room for that in Jehovah's
world! As long as He still reigns, let the earth rejoice and let His
people wait upon Him in hope.
Further, we learn another lesson, namely, that when prayer has been
exercised concerning anything, it is our duty and our privilege to
expect the answer!
We sometimes pray and receive nothing–but it is in most cases because
we have asked amiss. Or if we are quite sure that our request was a
right one, yet we have forgotten the canon or the Law which says, "Let
him ask in faith, nothing wavering, for he that wavers is as the waves
of the sea driven by the wind and tossed: let not that man expect to
receive anything of the Lord." Now, if we ask believingly, we are quite
sure to ask expectantly! We shall go up to the top of Carmel to look
for the cloud if we have believingly sought for the rain. We shall send
Gehazi yet seven times if he perceives no sign of mercy at the
first–and we shall continue in importunate prayer–still believing
that Jehovah cannot lie and will, as surely as He lives, be as good as
His word and fulfill His promise to those who trust Him.
How bold it was of Elijah to go to Ahab, even before that cloud had
been seen, before he had sent his servant to look for it, and to say to
him, "There i s a sound of abundance of rain!" What was that sound? I
know not. I do not suppose that Ahab heard it, or that anyone else,
except Elijah, recognized it. The ears of true faith are very quick and
keen. She hears the coming of the blessing, the footsteps of the angels
as they draw near, by way of Jacob's ladder. God has heard her, and she
hears her God! God is quick to hear her whispers and her thoughts–and
she knows "the secret of the Lord," for it "is with them that fear
Him." And long before the eyes have seen, or the ears have heard, or it
has entered into the heart of man to imagine it, she perceives that the
blessing is coming! There are certain sacred instincts which belong to
the faith of God's elect, which faith always comes from God. We must
remember its Divine origin and that it
keeps up its acquaintanceship with the Eternal Father by whom it was
begotten. Like the shell picked up from the deep sea which always
continues to whisper hoarsely of the sea from which it came, so faith
continues to hear the sound of Jehovah's goings. If none else hears
them, she perceives them!
I thought of using this fact tonight as an illustration of the Truth of
God that there are certain signs which faith can see of a coming
revival in a Church. We will take that first. Then, there are certain
tokens which faith can perceive of coming joy and peace in an
individual heart–of that secondly. In the first place–
I. THERE ARE CERTAIN SIGNS AND TOKENS FOR GOOD WHICH PRAYERFUL FAITH
CLEARLY PERCEIVES WHEN AN AWAKENING–A GENUINE REVIVAL–IS ABOUT TO
COME.
What are these signs? I do not know that they are perceptible at this
time throughout the Churches of London. I do not know that they are
perceptible anywhere, but I do know that wherever they are, they are
the shadows which coming events cast before them! And one of the first
of them is this–a growing dissatisfaction with the present state of
things and an increasing anxiety among the members of the Church for
the salvation of souls. To have no conversions is a very dreadful
thing, but to be at ease without seeing conversions is at all times
more dreadful! I could bear a suspension in the increase of the Church,
I think, with some degree of peace of mind if I found all the members
distressed and disturbed about it!
But if we should ever come to this pass–God grant we never may!–that
we shall see no conversions and yet shall all of us say, "Still, still
our place is well attended. There are such-and-such persons who
come–we ourselves are fed with spiritual food and, therefore, all is
well." I say, if it ever comes to that, it will be a thing to mourn
over, both by day and night, for it will be a token that the Spirit of
God has for a while forsaken us! Oh, that the Churches in London where
the congregations are but small, and where the conversions are but few,
would be clothed in sackcloth and cast ashes upon their heads! Oh, that
they would proclaim a day of fasting and humble themselves before the
Lord in the bitterness of their souls, for when it came to this,
Jehovah's hand would turn towards them in bounty and they would soon
become the joyful mothers of children! As long as a Church is satisfied
to be barren, she shall be barren! But when she cries out in the
anguish of her spirit, then shall Jehovah remember her. He hears the
cries of His people, but when she will not cry and is at ease in
desolate circumstances, then the desolation shall continue and the
sorrows be multiplied!
Dear Friends, it should be a matter of personal heart-searching for you
how far any of you are at ease in Zion, how far you are satisfied
without doing good yourselves, for in proportion as you are such, you
are tainting the Church with evil. But, on the other hand, let me
enquire whether you have learned to sigh and cry for all the sin of
this huge city, for all the abominations of this, our country? Let me
ask whether you ever laid to heart the teeming millions of the heathen
populations who are dying without a Savior? If you do this–and if all
of us do it–it cannot be long before God shall look upon the earth and
send a shower of Divine Grace, for that anxiety in Christian heartsis
the sound of the coming of abundance of rain!
Another indication of a large blessing near at hand is when this
anxiety leads Believers to be exceedingly earnest and importunate in
prayer When, one by one, in their own chambers they become the King's
remembrancers and plead with Him day and night. When by twos and threes
in the family, the prayer becomes fervent and grows into a passionate
cry, "Oh, God, remember the land and send a blessing!" When in the
Churches, the spirit of prayer needs not to be excited by appeals from
the pulpit, but is general and spontaneous! When the members make it a
matter of regular conscience and joyous privilege to attend the Prayer
Meetings and when there they do not preach sermons, nor deliver
themselves of doctrinal disquisitions to their fellow men, but are like
Elijah when he knelt at Carmel with his head between his knees, or else
like Jacob, at Jabbok, when he said, "I will not let You go, except You
bless me." Then be sure of the blessing coming, for this sign never yet
failed! Whenever and wherever there is this abounding prayer, there
must be abounding blessing before long! Baal's worshippers may pray to
him and he may not answer them. They may cut themselves with stones and
cover his altar with their blood, but Jehovah always looks to the
earnestness of His people and will surely avenge His own elect, though
He bears long with them. He will give them the desires of their hearts!
May we see–as we have seen it in this Church–may we see it renewed
among us–may we see it in every part of Christendom, in every Church
in London, in every Church throughout the whole British Empire, in
America and wherever there are Believers–a deep and awful anxiety for
souls that will not let Believers be quiet, but will give them to
exercise an incessant pleading with God which will stir up His strength
and cause Him to make bare His arm!
A third sign, and a far more approximate one because it is the result
of the other two, is when ministers begin to take counsel, one with
another, and to say, "What must we do?" The Church is earnest. We, too,
share the fervor. What must we do that we may be more useful, that we
may win more for Christ?" It becomes the sign of a great blessing when
men in the ministry will preach the Gospel more fully, more simply,
more affectionately, more in dependence upon the Holy Spirit than they
have ever done before. In proportion as elocution shall be less
regarded, rhetoric be less honored, long words less admired–but
simplicity, plainness of speech, boldness and earnestness shall be
sought after–in that proportion, depend upon it, the blessing will
come! In vain the prayers of God's people and all their tears in that
place where the ministry gives forth an uncertain sound!
How shall God bless His vineyard by a cloud in which there is no rain?
How shall He water the plants of His own right hand planting from a
cistern that holds no water? Ah, Brothers, if any of you have been
guilty of expounding philosophical themes when he ought to have been
preaching the simple Gospel–if we have been guilty of trying to get
poetic sentences and flowery periods when our sentences ought to have
been short and sharp like daggers in the consciences of men! If we have
lifted up a mere dogma instead of exalting Christ, and have preached
the letter and forgotten the spirit, may God forgive us this great
offense and help us, from this time forward, to begin to learn how to
preach, to begin to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn from Him how to
touch the springs of the human heart and, by His Spirit's power, lead
men to cry, "What must we do to be saved?"
Brothers in Christ who preach the Gospel, it is in no spirit of mere
criticism of the general ministry that I have offered these sentences!
It is rather in criticism of us all and loving counsel to us all. If we
are to obtain a blessing, depend upon it, we must come nearer to the
Cross! We must get to value human knowledge less and to value Christ
infinitely more! And then, having these, we must cry aloud and spare
not–and our message must always be concerning salvation. We must leave
for a time the more difficult and deep things of God and we must keep
hammering away at this one thing with all our might–that Jesus Christ
came into the world to save sinners and that whoever believes in Him
shall not perish, but have everlasting life! Where this shall became
commonly the case, there shall be the sound of an abundance of rain!
God send us more Haliburtons, more McCheynes, more Harrington Evans,
more men of the stamp of John Newton, Mr. Whitfield and the
Wesleys–and when we have these, we may take it as an indication that
God is blessing us and that it is a sound of abundance of rain!
I have not quite concluded the list of these favorable tokens. There
will be a certainty that the rain is falling. The first few drops will
be wetting the sensitive pavement of the Christian Church when we shall
see the Doctrine of individual responsibility fully felt and carried
out into individual action. I believe–I do not know whether there are
any of you among them–that there are a great multitude of Christian
people who think that religion is a thing for ministers and that
ministers ought to do all they can for the spread of the knowledge of
the true religion. Of course, they include City Missionaries, Bible
women and good people who can give all their time to such work! But the
notion that every saved man is to be a minister in some sense, that
every converted woman has also her share of ministry to perform for
Christ, that it is not one member of the body that is to be active,
while all the others are to be torpid and idle–of this they do not
dream! When it shall be believed that there is as much work for the
foot as there is for the head and as much for the uncomely parts as for
those that have abundant comeliness–when the poor shall feel that the
Church cannot do without them and the rich shall perceive that they
have their work to do in the circles in which they move–when the
illiterate shall talk of Christ as well as the educated. When the
nurse-girl, the servant in the kitchen, the workman at the loom and
plow shall all be moved by one common impulse–when the Divine
enthusiasm shall blaze in the learned and in the ignorant, when it
shall flash up in the heart of the members of Parliament, when it shall
be found in the highest and lowest places of the land–when every
Christian shall feel that he is not his own, but bought with a
price–when he shall see the blood-mark stamped upon him and say with
the Apostle, "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus," when the
consecrated life shall be lived, not in cloisters and nunneries, but in
cottages, mansions, palaces–in the abodes of wealth and fashion as in
the dwelling places of poverty. When God's men go out into the world as
God's men, feeling that they are to live for Him fully, as Paul lived
for Him fully, feeling that for them to live is indeed Christ–then,
Brothers and Sisters, there will be a sound of an abundance of rain!
Verily, verily, I say unto you, you need not think of the conversion of
Japan, India and China, nor of Ethiopia's turning unto God–we,
ourselves, need to be converted to God first! The Church of God is not
fit to have a great blessing yet. If she is not first of all baptized
in the Holy Spirit and in fire, she will not be qualified to do the
great deeds that God intends her to do before long. The world shall be
saved, but the Church must first be quickened. The nations shall be
converted, but the Church of God must, first of all, be awakened! The
fire shall go forth from Zion, but it must first burn furiously upon
Zion's own hearth! Out of nothing comes nothing–and if the Church
degenerates into nothing, she will do nothing. It is only when she
possesses the Divine Life in the fullest vigor, that she shall be
capable of doing work for God which shall glorify the name of the Lord
Jesus! The Church has now got all the conversions that she is qualified
to get. God always gives every Church as big a blessing as it is fit to
have–and if it qualifies itself for more–it shall have more! God
treats His Churches as parents treat their sons. They give them but
little money when they are children–a penny will do–but when they get
to be young men, they shall have yet more. We have but little because
we are fit to possess and use but little. We are not faithful in what
is given to us–and if the one talent often lies wrapped in a napkin,
how can we expect to have five or 10 entrusted to us?
God stir up His Church, then, in the manner which I have tried to
depict, and there will be "a sound of abundance of rain." And now to
change the line of thought, I want to–
II. HAVE A FEW MINUTES' QUIET TALK WITH PERSONS WHO ARE DISPIRITED.
Some of you have got into Giant Despair's castle. You have had a taste
of his cruel crab tree cudgel lately. You have been taken to see the
dead men's bones outside the castle and you have been told that there
is nothing for you but destruction. Now, there is, I believe, to such
as you are, with all your sad distress of mind, an indication that the
famine and drought of your soul shall soon end. Such a condition as
yours cannot always be. There are always signs of abundance of rain.
Perhaps there are some such signs now in you!
This is one–God always means to bless us when He empties us
completely–when we get to know that we are nothing and have nothing
unless He fills us with His hidden treasure! If you were self-confident
and felt that you could rally yourself–that you had still some stores
to fall back upon–it is very likely that your present state would
continue. But if you are brought to the ground, you cannot go any lower
and you shall soon be lifted up! If it has come to be the darkest hour
in the night, the day will soon dawn, the first beams will soon streak
and redden the horizon! When you become so poor and needy that you dare
not trust yourself in anything–when you feel as if you scarcely could
open your mouth, but cry, "Open You my lips"–when you feel as if your
wisdom were all turned to folly and your wit all gone, like a man at
sea, staggering to and fro, reeling like a drunken man. When you feel
that you cannot help yourself, then remember the old proverb that
"man's extremity is God's opportunity." You must empty the pitcher
before you can fill it! You must get the purse emptied of all the bad
money before you can put in the genuine coin. You must throw the chaff
out of the bushel before you can put in the wheat. And God is emptying
you of your self-sufficiency and carnal trust in order that now there
may be a full Christ for empty sinners, a rich Christ for
poverty-stricken sinners! If you have got a moldy crust of your own,
you shall not have the Bread of Heaven. If you have one brass farthing
left of your own merit, you shall not have Christ–
"'Tis perfect poverty alone
That sets the soul at large–
While we can call one mite our own,
We get no full discharge!
But let our debts be what they may,
However great or small,
As soon as we have nothing to pay,
Our God forgives us all!"
Now, your being nothing and having nothing–your being helplessly
bankrupt in spiritual affairs–is a token for good and I thank the
Master for it!
There is sure to be a sign of abundance of rain, too, when your soul
begins to be unutterably miserable apart from Jesus Christ. If you
could find comfort in the joys of this world, I would fear it would be
a long while before you would find peace. But if pleasures which were
once so sweet have now become insipid or distasteful. If social joys
are now shunned because you have an aching void within your heart which
these cannot fill. If you get alone and sigh and cry because you
need–you need, you scarcely know what–but still you feel you cannot
rest until you find your God! That unrest, that dissatisfaction,
disturbance, longing, sighing and pining all are good signs! "Blessed
are they that hunger and thirst after
righteousness, for they shall be filled." I think I can hear in that
longing of yours a sound of abundance of rain! But there are better
signs than any you can see in yourselves, for the most comfortable
evidences we can ever bring from self are generally but miserable
comforters, like those of poor Job. They begin by comforting and end by
making us more wretched than before.
But here are some things that are signs of abundance of rain. The first
is, God has given His Son to die for sinners. You are a sinner. You
know it and you feel it. Now, a sinner is a sacred thing. The Holy
Spirit has made him so by declaring that Christ came to seek and to
save just such! If God has given His dear Son to bleed upon the Cross
as a Substitute for guilt, surely He will deny nothing! "He that spared
not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not, with
Him, also freely give us all things?" Stand at the foot of the Cross
and as you hear the blood of Jesus falling, drop by drop, surely in the
ears of faith there is a sound of abundance of rain!
But He lives. He is gone from the Cross to Heaven where He lives and
intercedes before His Father's face. "Therefore also," it is written,
"He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him,
seeing that He ever lives to make intercession for them." If you hear
the voice of Jesus pleading with authority before the Father's Throne,
you feel certain that God will not refuse His Son's request, but will
do to Him according to His petition. So that here is another sound of
abundance of rain! "He made intercession for the transgressors"–that
is you again. He makes intercession for such as you are! Give Him,
then, your cause to plead, nor doubt the Father's Grace.
Another blessed sign of an abundance of mercy for poor burdened souls
is the gift of the Holy Spirit The Holy Spirit has been given to us. It
is a thing that we are to pray for, that the Holy Spirit may be poured
out, but the Holy Spirit is poured out, was given to the whole Church
on the day of Pentecost in order that He might abide with us forever!
The Holy Spirit, then, is here–the Head of the present dispensation,
ruling and reigning in the hearts of His people. But why does He come?
To convince of sin, to give us repentance, to show us Christ, to lead
us to Christ, to work faith in us, to breed all the spiritual Graces
within our souls.
Oh, Friends, however barren and dead we may be, the Holy Spirit can
quicken us! And in the fact that He is given to His people there is
another sign of abundance of rain.
But I think there is another we must not forget–and that is that there
is a Mercy Seat. I like, when I feel my own sinfulness and corruption,
to think that there is still a Mercy Seat. There it stands. I may not
have gone to it as I ought. I may feel as if I never could go to it as
I ought. My heart may be as heavy as a stone, but there is the Mercy
Seat and God does not mean not to bless me, or He would have taken that
Mercy Seat away! He would have said, "No, I forbid you to pray. I will
never hear you again." But as long as there stands that blood-sprinkled
Mercy Seat, why, who is it meant for? It is surely meant for the needy!
It is meant for those who need to pray–and the blood upon it is an
evidence that it is meant for the guilty who need pardon–
"The Mercy Seat is open still, Here let my soul retreat" The very fact
that I may pray is another sign of an abundance of rain!
And once more–is it not a sign of an abundance of mercy to a poor
devil-dragged sinner who has been dragged, as it were, through a whole
forest of temptations, through the brambles and briars of his sins, who
is all wounded, torn, ragged and bleeding–is it not a sign of mercy to
him that there is the invitation always ringing from the Gospel, '
'Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give
you rest"? Always does that invitation stand! Never does it cease to
call! This silver trumpet always sounds! The bell is always ringing–
"Come and welcome, Sinner, come!" "Ho, everyone that thirsts, come to
the waters, and he that has no money, let him come: yes, come, buy wine
and milk, without money, and without price." Why that invitation? Is it
mockery? Is it scorn or sarcasm? Does God invite intending to repulse?
Does He set open the door of mercy meaning to shut it in the sinner's
face? Impossible! God is willing to receive and bless, for God invites
most freely. And, mark you, He does more than invite–He commands–and
with the command there is a threat! "He that believes and is baptized
shall be saved; He that believes not shall be condemned." He makes it a
sin not to believe–a sin not to have mercy upon yourselves–a sin not
to take the mercy which He freely gives! Yes, He makes this the
greatest of all sins. This is the sin which causes men to perish, that
they believe not in Christ. "He that believes not is condemned already,
because He has not believed on the Son of God." Now, see how
hearty God is in this matter. He first invites–will He reject you?
Next, He commands you to come–can He cast you away when you do as He
bids you do? Then He threatens you, if you do not come. How His heart
of generosity is displayed here! He cannot refuse to save you if you
trust Him. You, blackest, worst and vilest, if you trust Him, He cannot
refuse you! He has threatened to destroy you if you do not trust–can
He destroy you if you do? What a God were that! No! Cast yourselves
upon Him! Fall flat upon the promise which He gives you in His dear Son
and surely, so doing, you shall feel that great rain for which your
thirsty soul is longing, for the very invitation is a sound of
abundance of rain!
Christian Brothers and Sisters, I dare say some of you sometimes get
very dry and feel as if you need an abundance of rain. Well, that very
sense of need, that inward craving, will be a sign of its coming!
Continue much in prayer, even when you do not get a blessing in it. An
esteemed clergyman gives this advice to his friends–if they have not
liberty in prayer, to be sure and use a form! I think that is about as
bad advice as he could possibly have given! When you feel you have not
liberty in prayer, pray in order to get liberty! Do not leave the Mercy
Seat till you do, but put up with no makeshifts. Do not resort to any
of those legs of wood, iron and stone. Get to have real and living
fellowship with Christ and dread above all things, the possibility of
sham religion being put in the place of the real, living thing! Never
be satisfied, dearly Beloved, until you live every day in communion
with Christ! Do not be content without the abiding Presence of that
gracious Sun of your soul, your blessed Savior! Without Him, this life
is a very death–and the thought of the world to come a torment to the
spirit! And when you feel you cannot do without Him, without the
reality of His assured Presence. When services will not do and the
Bible, itself, will not do. Without getting Him, without getting
heart-work and spirit-work, without getting the soul and sustenance of
it–then it is that before long an abundant blessing will drop upon
your soul!
The Lord make us uneasy and wretched out of Him–make us hungry and
thirsty apart from Him! The Lord make us covetous beyond all
covetousness after Him, dissatisfied beyond all peace of mind apart
from Him! And when we get to that, He will feed us with bread to the
fullest and give us the wines on the lees well-refined, that we may
drink and rejoice! May God give a blessing to these words for Jesus'
sake. Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW 7.
While we are reading, let us also be adoring at the same time, for the
words of Christ have a gracious Divinity about them. They are Infinite.
They are Omnipotent. There is a kind of life in them–a life which
communicates itself to those who hear them. Our Savior did not preach
sermons–He preached texts. All His sermons are full of golden
sentences, not hammered gold leaf, like those of men, but ingots of
solid gold and the gold of that land is good, the most fine gold. There
is none like it. Thus He preaches in the seventh Chapter of Matthew.
Verse 1. Judge not that you be not judged. Set not up for critics,
especially in the act of worship. Probably there is no greater
destroyer of profit in the hearing of the Word of God than is the
spirit of carping criticism.
1, 2. Judge not that you be not judged. For with what judgment you
judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be
measured to you again. When the Lord comes in judgment, He might almost
decline to mount the Throne, for He might say, "These men have already
tried and condemned each other–let their sentences abide." If He were
to judge us as we have judged others, who among us would stand? But we
may rest assured that our fellow men will usually exercise towards us
much the same judgment that we exercise towards them.
3. And why do you behold the speck that is in your brother's eye, but
consider not the beam that is in your own eye? It is a beam. You do not
see it because it is in your own eye. How is it that you can be so
severe towards that which is in another, and so lenient towards
yourself?
4, 5. Or how willyou say to your brother, Let mepull the speck out
ofyour eye and, behold, a beam is in your own eye? You hypocrite! First
cast out the beam out ofyour own eye; and then shall you see clearly to
cast out the speck out ofyour brother' eye. There may be, dear Friends,
a great deal of hypocrisy about us, of which we are not aware, for when
a man sees a fault in another and tells him of it, he says, "You know I
am a very plain-spoken person. There is no hypocrisy about me." Well,
but there is, and, according to the Savior's description, this may be
sheer hypocrisy because meanwhile in your own eye there is something
worse than you see in your fellow, and this you pass over! And this is
simply
untruthful dealing and it amounts to hypocrisy. If you were really so
zealous to make people see, you would begin by being zealous to see,
yourself! And if you were so concerned to have all eyes cleansed from
impurity, you would begin by cleansing your own, or seeking to have
them cleansed.
6. Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls
before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn again
and tear you to pieces. It is a pity to talk about some of the secrets
of our holy faith in any and every company. It would be almost profane
to speak of them in the company of profane men. We know that they would
not understand us–they would find occasion for jest and ridicule and,
therefore, our own reverence for holy things must cause us to lay a
finger on our lips when we are in the presence of profane persons. Do
not let us, however, carry out one precept to the exclusion of others!
There are dogs that eat of the crumbs that fall from the master's
table. Drop them a crumb. And there are even swine that may yet be
transformed–to whom the sight of a pearl might give some inkling of a
better condition of heart. Cast not the pearls before them, but you may
show them to them sometimes when they are in as good a state of mind as
they are likely to be in. It is ours to preach the Gospel to every
creature–that is a precept of Christ, and yet all creatures are not
always in the condition to hear the Gospel. We must choose our time.
Yet even this I would not push too far. We are to preach the Gospel in
season and out of season. Oh, that we may be able to follow precepts as
far as they are meant to go, and no further.
7. Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find; knock, and
it shall be opened unto you. This is the simplest form of prayer.
Follow up your prayer by the effort. "Knock, and it shall be opened
unto you." Add force to your petitions and to your prayers. If the door
blocks the way, knock until it is opened.
8. For everyone that asks, receives, and he that seeks, finds, and to
him that knocks, it shall be opened. One way or another you will get
the blessing if you are but persevering! And blessed is the man who is
a master of the art of asking, but does not forget the labor of seeking
an entrance through the importunity of knocking!
9. 10. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son asks for bread,
will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a
serpent?Our Lord will give us the real thing. Sometimes we would be
quite satisfied with an imitation of it. And sometimes we have to wait
and be prepared for the reception of the real thing–it is infinitely
better for us to wait for months than immediately to get a
stone–better to wait for a fish than the next moment to have a
scorpion! There were some in the wilderness who asked to be satisfied,
and they were so, with the flesh of quails. They got their stones, they
got their scorpions. But the Lord's people may sometimes find that they
have to wait a while. God will not give to them that which is other
than good for them.
11, 12. If you, then, being evil, know how to give goodgifts unto your
children, howmuch more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good
things to them that ask Him? Therefore all things whatever you would
that men should do to you, do you even so to them: for this is the Law
and the Prophets. Wonderful condensation of the two tables of the Law!
God help us to remember it. This is a golden rule and he that follows
that shall lead a golden life.
13, 14. Enter you in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and
broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are which go
in that way. Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which
leads unto life, and few there are that find it.Do not be ashamed of
being called narrow! Do not be ashamed of being supposed to lead a life
of great precision and exactness. There is nothing very grand about
breadth, after all. And I have noticed one thing–the broadest men I
have ever met with in the best sense, have always kept to the narrow
way, and the narrowest people I know are those who are so fond of the
broad way! I could indicate some literature which professes to be
exceedingly liberal–it is liberal, indeed, in finding fault with
everybody who holds the Gospel, but its tone is bitterness, itself,
towards all the orthodox! Wormwood and gall are honey compared with
what the liberal people generally pour out upon those who keep close to
the Truth of God! I prefer to cultivate a broad spirit to a narrow
heart–and then to talk about the breadth of the way.
15. Beware of false prophets.But as long as he is a prophet, people
will respect him. Do not find fault with him, he is a clever man.
15-25. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing,
but inwardly they are ravening wolves. You shallknow them by their
fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? Even
so, every good tree brings forth good fruit: but a corrupt tree brings
forth evil fruit A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can
a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit Every tree that brings not forth
good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Therefore by their
fruits you shallknow them. Not everyone that says unto Me, Lord, Lord,
shall enter into the Kingdom ofHeaven; but he that does the will of My
Father which is in Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord,
have we not prophesied in Your name? And in Your name have cast out
devils; and in Your name done many wonderful works? And then will I say
unto them, I never knew you; depart from Me, you that work iniquity.
Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will
liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock And the
rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon
that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.For the
best man will be tried, and perhaps all the more because he is such!
26-29. And everyone that hears these sayings of Mine and does them not,
shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the
sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew,
and beat upon that house: and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people
were astonishedat His Doctrine. For He taught them as one having
authority, andnot as the scribes.