Shall and Will

Shall and Will

(No. 3416)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 23, 1914.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him." Psalm 91:15.

THIS Psalm is full to the very brim of exceedingly great and precious
promises, nor is our text the least choice of them all. We have here
two pearls. I am not sufficient merchantman to be able to say which is
the more precious, but I am certain that the two put together are
priceless beyond all computation!

"He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him." "He shall call upon
Me." Prayer is, itself, a blessing. The desire to pray, the disposition
to pray, the resolve, the determination to pray–what hopeful, healthy
symptoms these are! But to be able to pray–ah, what some might give if
they could put forth their soul's strength in this cheering exercise!
Then comes the Divine engagement favorably to hear prayer, "And I will
answer him." What would some give, especially the lost–those beyond
the reach of mercy–if they could but hope that their cry of anguish
could meet with a response of pity! That God would answer them, even if
it were to relieve, though it might not be to remove their torments! We
have this privilege. Prayer is encouraged and prayer is answered! These
two are stars which shine in the Christian's sky, lit up by God to lead
him to the land where darkness shall be all unknown!

We have no time for a preface, therefore let us at once notice that
prayer must be offered–and that prayer must be answered.

I. THERE MUST BE PRAYER. "He shall call upon Me." It is not said, "I
will give him this and that without his praying." He that asks
receives. To him that knocks it shall be opened. He that seeks finds.
The asking, the knocking, the seeking must come before the
reception–the opening of the door and the finding. This is God's way.
"For this will I be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for
them." Though the promise is good and sure, and will be fulfilled, we
are to bring it in our hands, lay it before the Throne of God and plead
with God's faithfulness and mercy that He will do as He has said.
Prayer is essential.

The text seems to assert that the man who dwells near to God must and
shall pray. "He shall call upon me." Others may refuse–man has a will
of his own, but this will shall not stand in the way or prevent prayer.
He shall be willing to pray. He shall be made willing in the day of
God's power. If having received a new heart and a right spirit, his
will shall be in such gracious order that he shall will to pray! God
declares that if other men are silent, this man shall pray. This is a
bell which God will ring! This is a flute upon which God will play.
This is an organ which shall send forth its peals, for God puts His
hands upon the keys. This man shall pray!

Beloved, you who know Christ, who are in the habit of dwelling in the
secret place of the Most High, you know that there is a constraint upon
you that you should pray. You are free agents, just as Paul was in the
matter of preaching and yet he said, "Woe is unto me if I preach not
the Gospel!" You are free agents in the matter of prayer, and yet do
you not feel that there is a Divine compelling that moves you, so that
it is woe unto you unless you draw near to God?

This necessity springs from divers causes. Within you there dwells the
Holy Spirit The Spirit of God is a Spirit of intercession. Wherever He
is, there will be a groaning which cannot be uttered–intercessions
made within the heart which has become the temple of the Blessed
Spirit! You cannot help praying if the Spirit of God is in your hearts.
Drive out that sacred Visitor and you will soon become as dumb as the
fish in the sea–but while He is there, you shall be like the seraphs
who continually cry before Him. Your prayer and your praise shall never
cease, but, like the incense upon the golden altar–it shall always
smoke–the fire shall never go out by day or by night. The Presence of
the Holy Spirit secures the fulfillment of this promise, "He shall call
upon Me."

Moreover, as the Holy Spirit gradually teaches you and educates you,
everything that you learn tends to make you pray. I say everything, my
Brothers and Sisters, whether you read in the illuminated books wherein
you see the Glory of the Person of Christ, or whether you turn to the
black-letter volume in which you discover the depravity of your own
heart. Whichever may be the book, all sacred literature alike shall
lead you to pray. Certainly a sight of your own heart will do it. You
will tremble as you see the envy, the pride, the murders, the
murmurings, the rebellions of every sort that lurk there–and you will
turn to the Strong for strength, feeling that the monster evils of your
nature cannot be overcome by your own powers! They have chariots of
iron, they dwell in cities that are walled up to the skies! You cannot
drive them out, except a mightier power than yours shall be enlisted in
the warfare. Hence you will be driven to cry mightily unto the Lord God
of Israel, that He will put forth His Omnipotence because of your
impotence to overcome your corruptions and lusts!

And a sight of Christ–which is the opposite extreme of
experience–equally instructive and far more pleasant–a sight of
Christ will bring you to your knees. When Peter's boat was full and
began to sink, then down he went, saying, "Depart from me, for I am a
sinful man, O Lord." Sometimes a sense of the weight of sin may make us
wish to escape from Christ. Sad that it should be so! But when we see
the Glory of Christ, Himself, and behold His condescension towards us,
then we come very near to Him and beg Him to abide with us, finding
arguments in our circumstances to compel Him to tarry yet a little
longer since we cannot afford to lose his blessed fellowship.

So, as we learn and grow in Grace, we are sure to grow in prayer! If we
do not increase in prayerfulness, we may take it as a sign that we are
not advancing in the Divine Life. I am certain that the closet is the
thermometer of the entire man. Beloved Brothers and Sisters, how grow
you if this is the case? How is it with some of you if this is true?
Oh, how little time is spent upon your knees! Time, however, is of
small consequence, for I sometimes think we can pray more in five
minutes at one time than we can in hours at other seasons. Have you had
personal dealings with God of late? Have you come close to the Most
High? Have you wrestled with the Covenant Angel? If not, there is
something wrong. Begin the search! Perhaps under your beloved Rachel,
your most favored delight, some evil is hidden, some idol concealed.
Search and look, for if there is a lack of prayerfulness, there is
mischief somewhere.

Moreover, dear Friends, not only does the Holy Spirit compel us to
pray. Not only will all that we learn from Him lead us to prayer, but I
think the sense of holy joy which communion with God in prayer brings
will entice us into our retirement. We can look back upon some very,
very happy times that we have had, when no stranger's foot could
intrude into the sacred enclosure of our retreat with the Most High.
Have we not looked into the face of God–a marvelous sight! And have we
not been made to reflect from our own faces, afterwards, the light of
His Glory? Have we not spoken to Christ? Why, I dare to say there are
some of us who have as surely spoken with Him as a man speaks with his
friend! And it has sometimes become to us scarcely a matter of faith as
to whether there was a Christ or not, and whether He heard and
fulfilled our desires, for we have whispered right into His ear and
have felt Him to be near us. I do not mean with any carnal feeling, or
under a sense of mere excitement, but in all sobriety, when there was
no flush of feeling, for we have been heavy of heart with the world's
troubles, or we have been racked with physical pain. Or at other times,
when our passions have been subdued by long reading, by searching of
the Word, or by the exercise of prayer–then in our clearest senses we
have been cognizant of spiritual things as surely as ever in our lives
we were conscious of worldly things! Well, now, having once been at
that table, we long to get there again! Having once sipped of this
glorious river, we shall never be content with the muddy rivers of
Egypt anymore! We long for the hour to strike when secular business
shall be over, that we may begin spiritual business, the real business
of our souls in commerce with Heaven! We have wished that we could
prolong the time when we could sit, like David, before the Lord–when
our spirit could gather such confidence that we could almost dance
before the Lord as he did when girded with a linen ephod. I am sure
that the sweetness of prayer attracts and draws the Believer. Even as
birds are drawn with baits towards the snare, so towards the holy
exercise of prayer we are drawn by the sweet attractions it has.

The Lord takes care that His people shall pray by giving them a
plentiful supply of daily trials and needs. If there is anyone here
without needs, I can suppose him to live without prayer. And if you
have had a long course of prosperity, I can easily imagine that the
Mercy Seat has grown neglected. But it will not be so with those of you
who have to fight hard for daily bread, or with those of you who have
many cares in the household, or who have much trouble in your position
in life by persecution, by ridicule and sneers. Certainly, we who are
engaged in the business of a large Church with the care of many souls
upon us, cannot afford to do without prayer. And when we come into
contact with other people'ssouls, and get to be earnest about them, if
we did not pray, we would be worse monsters than those that throw their
young into the depths of the sea, for we should have utterly forsaken
those who have a call and claim upon us, deserting them in the most
important of matters, neglecting to make intercession before the Lord
for them. Surely, we would sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for
you. You who never look after sinners and do not care whether they
perish or not, you can live without prayer. But those of you who come
into contact with the desponding and try to encourage them, and find
you cannot–you who talk with the despairing and find you cannot
comfort them–you are driven to God! You call to Him to do what you
cannot–to perform what you cannot accomplish. I am persuaded that the
more intelligently active and the more earnestly vigorous a man is in
God's work, the more will he find the necessity of prayer. I do not
wonder that Christ spent whole nights in prayer. As a Man, He could not
have preached and done all He did without it. It would not have been
possible to have sustained the ardor of such zeal daily, hourly,
incessantly–without feeding it by nightly, restless, almost incessant
intercessions! Brothers and Sisters, God will have us pray! And if we
will not pray by reason of charm, He will force us to pray by reason of
fear! If we will not pray when the dish is dainty, He will break our
teeth with gravel and make us drunk with wormwood. If threats will not
bring you to your knees, trials shall! If one cut of the rod does not
remind you of your negligence, you shall have stroke upon stroke till
there are welts upon the skin, till you have smarted, groaned and
wept–till at length you shall say, "Before I was afflicted from the
Mercy Seat, I went astray, but now have I kept Your Word and come near
to Your Throne of Grace." But you shall call upon Him. If you are
elect, you shall cry unto Him. "Behold, he prays," must, and shall be
said of you! If you are a quickened soul, you shall pray. You shall not
be allowed to forget to breathe out your soul unto God! If the Lord
intends to crown you in Glory, He will make you wrestle in prayer
before you win that crown! "He shall call upon me." I delight to look
at the text in this light–not merely as the Christian's duty and
privilege, but as God's own purpose to make us pray! By the Divine
influence of His Holy Spirit and by the workings of His Providence, He
will compel His beloved ones to live near to Him. "He shall call upon
Me." And now, please, to observe the relative truth– II. PRAYER WILL
BE ANSWERED.

"And I will answer him." If your experience has not got so far as the
first head, you cannot enjoy the second. If you do not feel the
propulsions and compulsions of the Holy Spirit compelling you to pray,
you will have nothing to do with this–"And I will answer him." But if
you have been much engaged in prayer–then, as there was a necessity
for you to pray, so there is a necessity for God to answer!

Let me show you this. It is a part of the Divine scheme and plan by
which God governs the world and manages Providence that men should pray
and that He should answer them. I do not know why God is pleased so to
ordain it, but I do know that this is one of His statutes. In reading
Scripture, you constantly see evidence of it in precept, in promise and
in example. Now, when the sun rises, there is light. Why, I do not
know. There might have been light without the sun and there might have
been a sun that gave no light, but God has been pleased to put these
two things together– sunrise and light. So whenever there is prayer,
there is a blessing. I do not know why. There might have been prayer
without a blessing, for there is in the world of wrath. And there might
have been a blessing without prayer, for it often is sent to some who
sought it not. But God has been pleased to make this a rule for the
government of the moral and spiritual universe, that there shall be
prayer, first, and that then there shall be the answer to prayer. I do
not expect God to alter His rule about the sun rising. I do not expect
to see it light in the middle of the night before the sun is up.
Neither do I expect to see God altering this rule–that there shall be
a blessing upon the Church without His people seeking it! If we did but
observe it aright, we would perceive this to be as certainly a rule of
God's government as any law of Nature which has been discovered by
experience and embodied in science. And instead of wondering that
prayer is answered, we would come to look out for and expect answers!
Some of you good people who have been known to pray for your children
to be converted, have been not only pleased, which is quite right, but
you have been amazed, which is quite wrong, when you have seen the
Divine Grace that was in them and heard their profession of faith in
Christ! That surprise of yours looks as if you were wonder-struck to
find that God was honest and kept His Word, whereas you should take
that as a matter of course. But as this is so reliable, "He shall call
upon Me, and I will answer him," when you do not get an answer to
prayer, you should go to the Lord with this question, "Show me why You
contend with me. What is it that hinders the blessing? Why do You
withhold it? Is my prayer faulty? Or did I ask amiss? Or have I a wrong
intent? Or did I not plead the blood of Jesus enough? Or is it that I
am altogether unfit to receive such a blessing? Whichever it may be,

Lord, set me right, that I may pray, again, and have given to me the
answer to my prayer." You ought to get an answer and will get an answer
because it is a part of the rule of God's government!

It should be enough for every Believer to know that his prayer will be
heard because he has God's word for it Why raise objections or multiply
arguments? We have it before us. "He shall call upon Me, and I will
answer him." It is no longer a matter of conjecture! God has said He
will, and "let God be true and every man a liar." Settle it for
certain, that what God has promised, He can perform–and He
willperform!

Has not God always answered prayefi In looking back throughout the
history of the saints, this seems to be their constant testimony, "This
poor man cried unto the Lord, and the Lord heard him." He has heard
them in strange places–Jonah, to wit, in the whale's belly! He has
delivered them, in answer to prayer, out of very difficult positions–
Peter, to wit, when sleeping with four soldiers to be his guard–and
yet brought out of prison in answer to the prayers of God's Church. He
has answered prayer to some of us. We are the living witnesses to this.
I have sometimes said to skeptics, "You are Believers in the Baconian
philosophy, by which matters are proved by induction–that is to say,
certain facts are collated and then an inference is drawn from them.
Now, as an honest man, I solemnly declare that I have met with not
twenty, but hundreds of facts, facts certain to me, because they
concerned myself, in which God has given me what I asked of Him. Who,
then, are you, that you should say there is no God? Or who are you that
you should say God does not answer prayer when I, as credible as you
are, and quite as capable of judging of my own consciousness, and of
observing facts as you are, state this and that, and when not only I,
but hundreds of others, reliable people, who, if put into the witness
box tomorrow, would be accepted by any lawyer as being among the most
honorable and trustworthy witnesses in the parish–the very men whom he
would like to get on his side of a case–declare that God has answered
them? Why are they not to be believed?" Are all the thousands of God's
people to be put down as fools or fanatics, and a few addle-headed
infidels to be taken after the estimate of their own conceit, to know
everything? Well, when the world is turned upside down, perhaps it may
be so, but as long as things stand as they are and plain evidence
carries its weight with impartial jurymen, we shall hold to what we
know, and testify to what we have seen! God does hear! He has heard me!
He changes not! You may rest assured that if you call upon Him, He will
answer you.

Our God compares Himself constantly in Scripture to a Father. ' 'If
you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much
more shall your heavenly Father give His Holy Spirit to them that ask
Him? "You do not let our children cry to you for things which you have
promised them, and then refuse them. Of course, if they take whims into
their heads they may take them out again. And if they like to cry for
that which is not good for them, they may cry till they are tired. But
if they ask for that which you have promised to give them, you give
them according to their desire. Are you better than your Father in
Heaven? I think not. He condescends to represent Himself as a Friend.
Surely one friend will give to another who has need. Is Christ such a
poor Friend as to deny us our repeated and importunate prayers? He
calls Himself a Husband. You who have a tender husband's heart would
not refuse to your bride, your spouse, anything that would give her joy
that it was in your power to bestow. You know you would not. And do you
think that the Husband of the Church will let her cry to Him and refuse
her? Oh, no! He is a model of a husband in the love He has, and He will
be a model in the generosity with which He proves His love. "He shall
call upon Me, and I will answer him." The relationships of Father,
Friend and Husband, all go to prove that an answer shall and will come!

Were the duty of prayer enjoined, and no promise of answer vouchsafed,
of what use would it be? Has God enjoined upon us constantly a useless
observance, and perpetually commanded us to abide in the practice of an
unmeaning service? He says, "Continue in prayer." "Pray without
ceasing." Does God delude us and send us to an exercise which can by no
possibility be profitable? God forbid! We pray because He leads us and
He bids us because there is an end to be answered by it. Therefore, an
answer will come!

If God does not answer prayer, to what purpose is the Holy Spirit given
to us to make intercession for us? I t were blasphemy to suppose the
Holy Spirit doing a work of supererogation. Prayer is necessary and as
we know not what to pray for as we ought, the Holy Spirit
condescendingly comes to fulfill a useful office in helping our
infirmities and assisting us to pray.

Were there no answers to prayer, to what end would be the Mercy Seat?
It was the central part of the Jewish worship, the most mysterious of
all their religious furniture–the Ark overshadowed by the
cherubim–the Mercy Seat, which covered the Law and concealed the
sacred things. In symbol, or in spirit, the Scripture teaches us it is
a great privilege to be allowed to come to that Mercy Seat. Christ has
died to rend the veil, has sprinkled His own heart's blood to make
itpossible for us to approach without our being struck down for our
presumption as Nadab and Abihu were. And is all this for nothing? Never
tolerate such a thought for a single moment! Ah, my dear Brothers and
Sisters, there is a wonderful reality in prayer. I am afraid that some
professors have not proved it and those of us who really do know its
power do not use it as we should. If a man could have, somewhere in his
house, some little secret spring which, but to touch it, would bring
him all he needed–which could shake the world, which could move
Heaven, which could stop the sun and moon if necessary–would you not
think him insane if he never put his finger on that spring, but let it
lie idle by him? The insanity is our own! We may move the arm of God if
we will. There is nothing in earth or Heaven that we may not have, if
it is really good for us, if we do but know how to be importunate with
God in prayer for it–and yet we do not pray as if we believed in its
efficacy! Do you not often find yourselves hurrying through your prayer
and then going away without ever getting near to God? Depend upon it,
there is not one more ounce of prayer in the world than there is of
real dealing with God. That is the measure of prayer. Unless you draw
near to God and speak with Him, you may use the best language, you may
think yourselves in the most devout frame, but you have not prayed at
all! It is getting the grip, spiritually, laying hold upon Him who is
invisible, talking with Him as a man talks with his friend, ordering
your cause with arguments and then feeling, "I have really asked this
of the great invisible God, who has promised to give it, and I expect
it! I must look out for it, it will surely come–as sure as God is God,
He will keep His promise–and as He has made me call upon Him, He,
Himself, will answer me!" This is the essence of true prayer.

Do I hear somebody saying, "But there are persons who really pray, or
who think they do, but who do not get an answer.." That is quite true,
for there are a great many persons who do formally pray, and do not
truly pray. They offer a dead prayer–there is no life in it. The heart
is not at work, there is no faith, there is no communion! Now, if a man
will obtain of God, he must ask in faith, nothing wavering. How can he
that doubts, expect that he shall be heard? I must believe, if I come
to God, that God is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently
seek Him! And if I will not so believe, in vain do I expect to be
answered!

But, Brothers and Sisters, do not suppose that prayer will be answered
in every case according to the impulse of the suppliant, or that God
will give us just whatever we like to pray for No more dangerous power
could be committed to mortals! If the Lord would say to me, "I will
give you whatever you wish for," I should tremble at the
responsibility! Infinite knowledge, alone, could regulate unlimited
choice. It were a prerogative not to be entrusted to any but God! Only
suppose what would occur if every prayer that everybody offers were to
be answered. It is pretty certain no child of God would ever resign his
creature life. There would be sure to be something or other that would
prompt each one to live. We should have all the aged men who lived in
the days of David still here, as spectators, if not as competitors in
this world's struggles. I think, too, it is very likely that none of us
would ever have any trials. We would be sure to pray not to have them
and then there would be no room for faith to be exercised and no room
for God to be glorified! The world would come to a dreadful pass if men
were entrusted with an absolute power to have whatever they liked! It
would be, indeed, a terrible curse for any man to be put in possession
of such a faculty as that! You have no right to ask of God what He has
not promised. Somebody prayed the other day that he might be led to ask
a person to give him 500 pounds. He was so led, or he said he was, and
he asked me to do it! All I could say was that whenever I was "led" to
do it, I would do it, but just then I was not led. Another person was
led to pray that I might build him a cottage. Well, I was not led. A
young man was once led, in answer to prayer, to ask me to let him
preach for me at the Tabernacle. I was obliged to tell him, also, that
when I had had it revealed to me, as it had been to him, I would then
cheerfully obey the revelation, but it was lop-sided as yet, and had
only been revealed to one person, and not to the other! Such fanaticism
surely grows up where you get the idea that God will give you anything
you ask for. He will do no such thing! He will give you what He has
promised to give you, and if in His Word, He has promised to bestow it,
you have but to ask in faith and He will be as good as His Word! Hold
to that. If it is not a promised blessing in some form or other, you
have neither the right to ask for it, nor the right to accept it!

Should any man say, "I asked for a blessing that was plainly promised,
but did not obtain it," I should then say, Are you equally clear that
the obtaining of it would be for your good?' 'Yes," you say, "it would
make me comfortable." Just so, but is it for your good to be
comfortable? "And it would get me out of my difficulty." But may it not
be for your lasting good to be in the difficulty, and may there not be
something in the world a great deal higher for you and for me than
merely to be comfortable and to get out of difficulties? "Not as I
will, but as You will," was the prayer of the Man who had more power in
prayer than all of us put together–"Not as I will, but as You will."
We must always put that in. God does not give up His prerogative as
King when He bids us pray and promises us to answer. He still holds
everything in His own hands. You say to your child, "My Dear, I will
give you anything that is for your good." He asks you to let him have
his father's razors to play with. You know that very soon he will be
cutting himself, and you say, "No, my Child, that is preposterous." Or
he asks you to let him have those sweets that are poisonous and you
say, "No, my dear Child, I have no doubt they taste sweet to your
palate, but think of the bitter medicines you would have to take
afterwards, and of how much mischief they would do you. No, I cannot
let you have those." So it is with our God. He denies us many things we
wish for because they are not good for us. But there is one thing that
is certain–"No good thing will He withhold from them that walk
uprightly." If it is really good for you, you shall have it and God
shall be glorified byit!

To sum up all I have been saying tonight, I want, dear Friends, these
two promises to stand vividly set forth before your eyes–"He shall
call upon Me, and I will answer him." I want to stir you up to prayer.
Do let us have more prayer during this year than we have ever had. It
has been by prayer that we have been established up till now. When we
were very few at Park Street, before I had the pleasure of knowing the
most of you, among the best signs of the coming blessing was your
numerously-attended Prayer Meetings. We had a little vestry there and I
think we tried it about twice but it was no use–we could not get in,
but we must needs go into the Chapel. Oh, there were prayers there that
have been turned into answers since! There were many times when we
could not speak because we felt so much of the Presence of God that we
had need to sit still and pour out in tears and sobs the groans that
could not be uttered. We did pray with real, mighty, prevailing
prayer–and then there came a blessing. Wherever we went, God was with
us! Wherever the Word was preached–whether in Exeter Hall or the
Surrey Music-Hall–it mattered not in what place–the Word was blessed!
And though I am sometimes afraid that we shall get slack in prayer, yet
when I frequently see the whole of this basement full, and see you
sitting in the aisles on Monday evening (though some careless people
say, "Oh, it is only a Prayer Meeting!"), it does cheer and make glad
my heart. We cannot lose the blessing while we keep the spirit of
prayer! I want you to pray still more. Among other topics, I suggest to
you much more prayer for your children and for your families. We must
have them saved, Beloved. We cannot bear it that our children should be
cast away! The angel said to Lot, "Have you here any beside?" I say
that to each of you tonight. Have you in London any beside? You have
seen some saved–are there any left? Is there one left? Oh, Father,
never cease to pray till that one child is brought to God! Let your
prayers go up perpetually, "Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!"
When you have done with your families, pray for your neighbors. You
need never be short of objects for petition in this great city which is
so full of sin! In these times of poverty and distress, men, perhaps,
are more easily reached than they ever were. Let us pray more for them
and may the Eternal God soften them in their distress and bring them to
Himself. I claim myself to have a very special right to the prayers of
some here. I think I have a right to the prayers of all the members of
this Church, but on some of you in particular I have a claim which none
can dispute, for it has been through the Word preached here that you
have been brought from darkness to the Light of God, and I charge you,
my children in Christ, by the love which I trust subsists in your
hearts, never forget me in your prayers! You know not how much I need
it. It is not possible for any but God to know how much I need the
daily prayers of the Lord's people! Others of you are members of other
churches. Well, pray for your ministers and pray for us all. The
weakest of us will be strong when you pray! The strongest will grow
weak when you flag. Brothers and Sisters, pray for us that we may be
faithful, earnest, useful! And we say, as you shall pray for us, so may
God help you in that day when you shall draw near unto Him for
yourselves in distress. Pray for all your fellow Church members. Pray
for the backsliding, pray for any that are faltering, pray, I beseech
you, for our work connected with the Church here. I ask your prayers
for our college, in particular, that our Brothers who are going out to
preach the Gospel may go as God-sent servants, having their feet winged
with love and their souls fired with zeal!

Again and again, and again would I say it! If I should never say
another word to you, I think I would conclude by saying. Brothers and
Sisters, pray for us! Pray for yourselves and your families and your
neighbors! "Continue in prayer." "Watch and pray." Watch continually,
but pray, also, and the Lord hear you, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW5:41-48; 6:1-8.

Verse 41. And whoever shall compel you to go a mile, go with him two.
If you can do him any service, do it cheerfully, do it readily. Do what
he wants of you.

42. Give to him that asks you, and from him that would borrow of you,
turn not away. This is the spirit of the Christian–to live with the
view of doing service.

43-46. You have heard that it has been said, You shall love your
neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies,
bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for
them which despitefully use you and persecute you. That you may be the
children of your Father who is in Heaven; for He makes His sun to rise
on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the
unjust For if you love them who love you, what reward have you?You have
done what anybody would do.

46-48. Do not even the publicans do the same? And if you salute your
brethren, only, what do you more than others? Do not even the publicans
do so? Be you, therefore, perfect, even as your Father who is in Heaven
is perfect Rise out of ordinary manhood. Get beyond what others might
expect of you. Have a high standard. "Be you, therefore, perfect, even
as your Father who is in Heaven is perfect."

MATTHEW 6:1-8.

Verse 1. Take heed that you do not your alms before men, to be seen of
them: otherwise you have no reward from your Father who is in Heaven.
Our blessed Lord does not tell His disciples to give alms, but He takes
it for granted that they do. How could they be His disciples if they
did not do so? But He tells them to take care that they do not do this
in order to get honor and credit from it. Oh, how much is done in this
world that would be very good, but it is spoiled in the doing through
the motive done to be seen of men! "You have no reward from your Father
who is in Heaven."

2. Therefore when you do your alms, do not sound a trumpet before you,
as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they
may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.
So that they will never have another! They have been paid once for it
by the approbation of their fellow men. They will never have any
further reward.

3-5. But when you do alms let not your left hand know what your right
hand does: that your alms may be in secret: and your Father who sees in
secret, Himself shall reward you openly. And when you pray–He does not
tell His disciples to pray, but again takes it for granted that they
do–and he cannot be a Christian who does not pray. "A prayerless soul
is a Christless soul." "When you pray"–

5. You shall not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray
standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets that they
may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.All
they will ever get. People say, "What a wonderfully pious man he is to
pray up at the street corner." Yes, but that is the reward. The prayer
will die where it was offered.

6. But you, when you pray, enter into your closet Get into some quiet
nook–some secret place–no matter where. 6. And when you have shut
your door So that nobody can hear you–not wishing anybody to know even
that youare at prayer. "When you have shut your door."–

6-8. Pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in
secret, shall reward you openly. And when you pray, use not vain
repetitions, as the heathens do, for they think that they shall be
heard for their much speaking. Be not you therefore like unto they, for
your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask Him.
Prayers are never measured by the yard in Heaven. They are estimated by
their weight. If there is earnestness in them–truth, sincerity–God
accepts them however brief they are. Indeed, brevity is often an
excellence in prayer. Let us never, therefore, use vain repetitions.