Wordless Prayers Heard in Heaven
(No. 2696)
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, OCTOBER 14, 1900.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
SEPTEMBER 8, 1881.
"When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their
tongue fails for thirst, I the LORRD will hear them, I the God of
Israel will not forsake them." Isaiah 41:17.
NOTICE, dear Friends, that this double promise to the poor and needy
stands in connection with other great promises which guarantee the gift
of wonderful strength and blessing to God's people. These promises seem
to me to be such as the mightiest servant of God might well desire to
have fulfilled in himself. Look, for instance, at the one in the 15th
and 16th verses–"Behold, I will make you a new sharp threshing
instrument having teeth: you shall thresh the mountains, and beat them
small, and shall make the hills as chaff. You shall fan them, and the
wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and
you shall rejoice in the Lord, and shall glory in the Holy One of
Israel." What a great promise that is! How it makes the child of God to
participate in the greatness of Jehovah's strength! The picture here
drawn is a very remarkable one. Here is a man–a poor, feeble man–so
strengthened by God that he not only threshes wheat, but he threshes
mountains! Nor does he find that the gigantic enterprise is beyond the
strength imparted to him–the rocks and the hills are turned to chaff.
Nor is that all that happens to them, for this man, Divinely
strengthened, takes up a colossal winnowing fan and sets Alps, Andes,
Himalayas flying just like the small dust from the threshing floor!
This is grand work and it needs a man of God when he has come to the
fullness of his strength through the indwelling of the Spirit of God.
Whenever we quote a great promise like that, it usually depresses some
little one in the Lord's family. He (or, more likely, she) begins to
say, "But what can Ido? I cannot thresh mountains! No, rather, it seems
to me that Satan's threshing me and desiring to have me that he may
sift me as wheat. And, instead of me holding the winnowing fan in my
hand, it is the winnowing fan that is being used upon me–and what I
thought was a fine heap of wheat is being blown away– and I am afraid
there will be few precious grains left to lie upon the floor. Ah, me!
Ah, me!" Well, now, our God has a gracious way of caring for all His
children and, from the very nature of Him, I am quite certain that if
one of His children could be forgotten, it would not be the little one!
You mothers know that if ever there was one member of the household
left out in the cold when you closed the door at night, it would not be
the baby–you would be sure, first of all, to see that the wee mite was
safely housed. And if it were possible that the Divine mind could pass
over and forget one of the beloved family, it certainly would not be
the little one or the tried one!
There are special promises for the child of God in the time of
trial–"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and
through the rivers, they shall not flow over you: when you walk through
the fire, you shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon
you." The Presence of God is with all His chosen ones at all times! But
if there could be an exception to that rule, it certainly would not be
in the case of those who are tried, troubled and depressed. No, the
exception would be the other way. If the Good Shepherd left the 99
safely folded in the wilderness, He would be sure to go after the one
sheep that was lost–the weak and wounded one, the feeble and footsore
one–even though the cause of its sufferings might be its own guilty
wanderings! Oh, the splendor of the love of God! There is nothing to be
compared with it under Heaven, or even in Heaven itself. It stands
alone and unapproachable. He is always considering those among His
people who are downcast, weak and brokenhearted!
And I think that the promise of our text especially comes in, not for
you mountain-threshers–not for you who are made so strong in the Lord
and in the power of His might, but for some who cannot as yet get a
grip of that grand Word of His to which I have referred. There comes in
this sweet promise, "when the poor and needy," those who are not trying
to thresh mountains, but are looking for that which is necessary for
the supply of their own personal needs–seeking water They are in too
low a condition to be able to rise to the dignity of service, but are
just like poor Hagar and Ish-mael in the wilderness, seeking water.
They have fallen into such a sad and sorrowful state of heart that
instead of testifying to the goodness of God, they cannot testify to
anything, for "their tongue fails for thirst." It is then, in their
extremity, that the blessed promises shall come to them–"I the Lord
will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them."
I am going to follow the Good Shepherd's example and leave the 99–you
Brothers and Sisters who are happy and joyful in the Lord, I must leave
you to take care of yourselves, or, rather, the Lord will take care of
you. I want just now to go after that one sheep that is lost! And I
would not be surprised at all if there are not more than one out of
every hundred here in the condition which our text describes! If so,
may the Spirit of God cause the message to reach the hearts of all such
sorrowing ones that God may again be glorified in the abundance of His
mercy toward them! Let us begin at the beginning of the text and
consider it from point to point very briefly. We will start with these
people where the text starts with them.
I. Here is, first, POVERTY OF CONDITION–"When the poor and needy seek
water."
This description, of course, applies to poverty of
spiritualcondition–does it describe you, my Brother, my Sister?
Sometimes we say that we are "rich, and increased with goods, and have
need of nothing," though, all the while, we are "wretched, and
miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." But there are other times
when, consciously, among the poor, we are the poorest–and among the
needy, our need puts us in the very front rank.
Certainly, I think that most of us here would take the position of
great poverty as to anything like merit What have we ever done that can
commend us to God? When we have done all that our Master commanded, we
must still say, "We are unprofitable servants–we have done that which
was our duty to do. But we have not obeyed all His Commands by a long
shot. "Self-complacency may be a very pleasant feeling to cherish, but
he who walks near to God is a stranger to it. If ever God honors one of
His children in public, I bear witness that He has a way of flogging
him behind the door so as to make him feel that he has no glory save
only in the Lord! What have you ever done, you who have won many souls
for the Savior? You may thank God that He has thus honored you, but
beware lest you ever take any credit for it, yourself, for that would
be a strange perversion of the Truth of God. What if you have trained
up that family of yours in the fear of God and have seen the Divine
benediction resting upon your house? That is well, but are you the god
of your house? What would you have been and what would your house have
been if it had not been for the mercy of God to you and yours? Looking
back upon the whole of our life, we have to thank God for it–and we
must not let Him be robbed of any of the thanksgiving that is due to
Him. As for ourselves, the only fit tribute to all that we have done is
a tear! Let us thank God that He blots out our faults and our failings
with the precious blood of His dear Son! And let us also weep bitter
tears of regret over them that we should ever have sinned against Him.
If any here present have any merits in which they think they can glory,
there are, on the other hand, some of us who could sit down in dust and
ashes and cry out in the agony of our souls, for we are
poverty-stricken to the last degree as to anything of merit in and of
ourselves.
Yes, and we have poverty of another kind, namely, as to anything like
strength Not that we would plead that as an excuse for not doing much
for our Lord, for, albeit that we are fully conscious of our own
weakness, we never yet learned that God's Law was limited by human
power. We believe that it is our duty to do thousands of things which,
by reason of our impotence, we never do and never, perhaps, can do.
Still, the claims of duty remain the same as they always were, for if
we have sinned away our power, God has not, therefore, lost any of His
rights. We ought to have been perfect. Brothers, I say that if you and
I had lived absolutely perfect lives, even then we would not have
rendered a due return to God for the great debt we owe Him! If we have
preached Christ's Gospel, we ought to have preached it like flaming
seraphs. If we have suffered for Christ's sake, we ought to have been
ready to die like martyrs. We ought, in our lives, to have reproduced
the life of Christ! But when we struggle to attain to this high ideal,
there is a shrunken sinew that makes us like Jacob, halt upon our
thigh. And there is another shrunken sinew that makes us drop our
arm–and there is scarcely a part of our mental and spiritual
constitution which does not make us cry, with Paul, "To will is present
with me; but
how to perform that which is good, I find not. For the good that I
would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do."
Truly, we are poverty-stricken as to our strength. The smallest sin is
too much for us if God is gone from us. The slightest temptation blows
us over like children who are weak upon their legs–only God can
sustain us–and we need to constantly hear our Savior say to us, as He
said to His disciples, "Without Me you can do nothing!" When we first
heard that message, we used to think, "Oh, but surely we can do a
little." Yet, every day, that word, "nothing," seems to toll the
funeral knell of all self-confidence! Christ still says to us, "Without
Me you can do nothing," and we know that what He says is true. Some of
us are feeling the truth of this sentence and we are humbled in the
dust as we realize that we are, indeed, poor and needy as to strength.
Then, Brothers and Sisters, as to Grace, many of the children of God
are, to their shame, obliged to confess that they are poor and needy
where they oughtto be rich and where they mightbe rich–poor in
patience, poor in courage, poor in faith, poor in hope, poor in love,
poor in private prayer, poor in public influence–poor in every way.
Although the Grace of God can make us so spiritually rich that we may
be happy and be able, also, to be the means of blessing others, there
are many of God's children who scarcely seem to have a penny of
spending money, and they never appear to go to the King's treasury and
dip their hands in, and take out great handfuls of the precious gold of
Grace. They might do so if they would, but, alas, they continue
miserably poor through their own fault! So this last confession must be
made very humbly, as indeed the others I have mentioned ought to be.
And perhaps I am speaking right home to some Brothers and Sisters here
when I say that, as to merit, as to strength and even as to Grace, you
feel yourselves to be "poor and needy."
II. Our next remark is concerning URGENCY OF NEED.
"When the poor and needy seek"–what? Money? No, that is only to be
poor and needy. Bread? Yes, that shows a harder poverty than merely
being "poor and needy." But it is not bread that these poor and needy
ones are seeking, but "water." Why, that is generally to be had for
nothing–a drink of water! It must be very hard times, indeed, when
poor souls are in such a state that they are longing for water and
seeking for it afar, as though there were none near at hand. Brothers,
Sisters, are any of you in such a condition, so poor and needy that you
are sighing after the Living Water? Though you have drunk of it before,
are you still sighing for more of it and feel as if you do not know
where to find it?
This is an urgent necessity, for it touches a vital point A man can
exist without money. He can live without garments. He could live longer
without bread than he could without water, for you may relieve hunger,
but the pangs of thirst are awful, so those have said who have had to
endure it on a raft at sea. Water is a vital necessity of our being
and, therefore, God has appended to it a feverishness, an agony, a
burning, longing and intense desire to obtain it. Thirst is something
dreadful! Are you, my Brother, my Sister, thirsting for God, for the
living God? Are you crying to Him with David, "My soul thirsts for You,
my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is"?
Do you feel that you must get a visitation from God, or else your soul
will die? Have you been in a dry and thirsty land where there is no
water and have you come here saying, "Lord, I seek a cup–a necessary
cup of Living Water, and I need it to drink, but I am so
poverty-stricken that I cannot buy it. I am so weak that I cannot go
far to find it. I am so ignorant that I scarcely know where to look for
it! Lord, I am brought to this point–it is not any fancied Grace that
I need, it is not some high-soaring aspiration after perfection that I
cherish–but I need Grace enough to keep my faith alive! I need it now
such a cup of water from the well as shall enable me to realize that I
am a child of God"?
Do I address one in whom this vital necessity has become an agonizing
thirst? I think that I shall speak your experience when I say that I
have sometimes known what it was to feel that I would sacrifice my
eyes, and be blind, if I might but again get near my God. What
difference does it make if you have to lie in bed and suffer, if you
might but know that God's Countenance was lifted up upon your soul, and
that joy and gladness were in your spirit? They who have never lost the
consciousness of fellowship with God are to be envied. May there be
many such here! But, if any have once known it and have lost it, I hope
that they will be consumed by a vehement desire to have it back again,
that they may once more drink of the Water which is infinitely better
than that in "the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate." It were
worthwhile that our blood were shed to get a drink of that Living Water
again! It is truly sad when any child of God has sorrowfully to say–
"Where is the blessedness I knew When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view Of Jesus and His Word? What peaceful
hours I then enjoyed– How sweet their memory still. But now I find an
aching void The world can never fill."
Thank God that the void does ache and that the world cannot fill it! If
you, dear Friend, have an agonizing desire to drink the Water of Life,
you are the person to whom my text applies–"When the poor and needy
seek water."
Further, this is an immediate necessity. When a man's tongue fails for
thirst and he seeks water, he needs it at once. When he is perishing
for lack of water, he is not content if someone tells him that he shall
find it, by-and-by–he needs to find it at once. "Water! Water!" he
cries. "Give me water!" But as long as a man can cry as loudly as I
have just done, he can wait a little while. But if he gets to the point
that his tongue fails for thirst, then he needs it immediately, or he
will die. O child of God, if you have lost the Presence of your God,
you need to find it, again, while you are in that pew–you would not
like to go home without having a sight of your Father's face, would
you? And if you are in such a desperate state that you feel that you
must have it, then you shall have it, depend upon it! I pray that you
may be brought to such a condition that you shall be ready to die of
sickness of heart unless your hope is speedily fulfilled and you can
once again behold your God.
III. The third step down–and it is a very long one, is
this–DISAPPOINTMENT OF HOPE. "When the poor and needy seek water, and
there is none."
Ah, "there is none" even where they have found it before. They have
sought it in the right places. They have gone where they used to
go–where there are wells of water–yet they are bitterly disappointed,
for "there is none." Have not some of you, at times, found it so in
attending the means of Grace? You have gone again to the same place
where, before, your heart was refreshed as you drank deep draughts of
the Living Water. You listened to the same preacher whom you heard
there before and, perhaps, to others there was as much sweetness as
ever in his message–but to you there was none. Does not the preacher
himself know what it is, sometimes, to have a subject that is just like
a springing well and then, at another time, to find that he may pump as
long as he pleases, but not a drop of water comes forth? If it is so
with the preacher, it is certainly so with the hearers!
Sometimes, there is an unction from the Holy One resting upon the Word
so that it is like the ointment from the alabaster box–the heavenly
perfume fills the whole house! At another time it is the same Truth of
God that is preached and by the same lips and, possibly, with the same
earnest desire for a blessing–yet the blessing is not given. "The wind
blows" not only "where it wills," but as it wills–and there are times
when not a breath of the heavenly breeze stirs the still air! And then,
when "the poor and needy seek water" even where they used to find it,
"there is none."
It makes their case even more disappointing when they have, side by
side with them, others who are seeking water and finding it, yet,
"there is none" for them. Have you ever been to the Lord's Table–say,
with your own wife–and when she has been going home, she has said,
"Oh, what a precious Communion service! Was not the Lord manifestly
among His people in the breaking of bread?" And you have been ashamed
to tell her that you had not seen the Lord, even in His own ordinance?
Your eyes had been blinded. You have been sitting here sighing and
crying and no joy has come to you. I am sure it is often so in the
hearing of the Word. It is so in the private reading of the Scriptures.
It is so in all those means of Grace which God blesses to His people.
We sometimes find Him blessing one and missing others, just as,
sometimes, the rains are partial–one piece of ground is rained
upon–and another piece, close by, is not rained upon. Thus it comes to
pass that where others drink deep draughts, you poor and needy ones
come seeking water, "and there is none."
"And there is none." Of course, if you go to places where there is none
of the Living Water, why, then, you have only yourself to blame when
you cannot find it! If you go where the modern divinity is taught. If
you go where you hear the new doctrines, you will find no Water of Life
there. "There is none." That stream has been dried up long ago–the
Sirocco of doubt has swept across it and it has vanished–and there is
nothing left but the dry bed of the river. People who constantly go to
hear that kind of teaching must not blame the Lord, or complain if they
seek water and find none! When a bucket has the bottom out and the well
has long since ceased to hold any water–if you go there for it–you
will simply find that "there is none." But the pain of it is that,
sometimes, the earnest child of God frequents a ministry which
God has formerly blessed to him and others, yet he turns away
sorrowfully from the well which has yielded him no water, and he says,
"there is none." God is showing him the emptiness of the creature, the
vanity of all mortal help. He has a great and a wise design in it all,
and it may be that He will keep His child in that condition for a long
time, as poor and needy, seeking water–and finding none.
IV. Fourthly, we have here THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER–"And their tongue
fails for thirst." They cannot speak. They cannot tell their fellow
Christians about their trouble–"their tongue fails for thirst."
They are ashamed to tell others what they feel. It is a sad state for
any to be in, yet many are in it and, knowing that they are guilty and
that it is their own fault that they have fallen so low, they cannot
tell their fellow Christians anything about their condition. And so
they miss one very useful means of comfort. And their tongue so fails
for thirst that now, if a hymn is given out, they feel as if they must
not sing it. If there is a promise quoted, they feel as if they could
not appropriate it! And sometimes the prayer of a joyous Brother seems
to shoot over their head–they cannot attain to his experience. Yes,
"their tongue fails for thirst." They do not know how to express what
they feel.
If they were called upon to state their own feelings and convictions
before the living God, it may be that they have become so mournful and
sad that they could not describe themselves. Indeed, this is one of the
painful parts of some men's condition–that it is indescribable. If
they could only put it down in black and white, they might hope to get
over it, but it is mysterious, singular, strange, unaccountable. They
have fallen into such a strange condition–they have got down so low
that "their tongue fails for thirst."
Now I think we have gone about as low as we can. Here is a man who, to
begin with, is poor and needy. Here is a man who is lacking water, who
has sought it, but who cannot find it. Here is a man whose tongue is so
parched with thirst that he cannot say a single word–he must sit down
in sorrowful silence.
V. Yet, strange to say, now is the time that he learns that SALVATION
IS OF God!
Look again at the text. It says, "I the Lord will hearthem." What? Why,
they cannot speak! "Their tongue fails for thirst." Yet it says here,
"I the Lord will hearthem." Well, but their tongue fails them! Yes, but
He says it, "I the Lord will hear them." So that brings me to this
point–that God's great objective in bringing His people down so low as
this is to make thempray directly to Him–that now they may not seek
any water, but just cry to Him who is the Fountain of living
waters–that now they may not tell their friends about their need, nor
even tell it to themselves–but in the very silence of their soul, they
speak with God, for there is a kind of speech which is perfectly
consistent with silence–the speech of sorrow–the exhibition of the
wounds of misery–the opening up of the brokenness of the heart–the
setting before God, not in eloquent descriptions, but in indescribable
revelation, the intolerable need which lies within the soul! God means
you, dear Friend, to turn right to Him!
The text does not even say that they pray, because, sometimes, even
prayer becomes a mechanical act and we are apt to rely upon it for
comfort instead of upon our God. So the Lord says that He will hear
them, though there is no mention of prayer, and they feel that they
cannot pray. You feel, perhaps, as if you could not pray? Well, then,
now turn yourself to God! Rest yourself on God. You feel that all is
over with you, that your case is desperate? Then roll yourself upon the
living God. This is the point to which He means to bring you, so do not
let even your desire to pray be an obstacle between the Lord and your
soul! If you cannot utter a word, pray in this sense–that your very
heart, with unutterable groans, pours itself out like water before the
living God! This is where He would have us come and, oftentimes, it
needs all this bursting of the tempest, all this sorrow, all this
grief, before the Lord can get us to really speak with Him, not in
words, but from our very soul.
The prayer which is hidden away in the texts–for, although there is no
mention of prayer in it, yet it is hidden away there–is the prayer of
inward thirst You know that it is useless to say to a man who is in
distress of soul, "You must groan every morning, and you must groan
every night." No, no–he groans when he cannot help it! And though I
wish that all would have their special seasons for prayer, yet I
believe that the most mighty prayer in the world is that which cannot
be timed, or regulated, but which comes out because the suppliant must
pray. "Oh, God!" There may be more real prayer in that abrupt prayer,
when it is forced out of you by the overwhelming sense of your need,
than there is when you put yourself into a comfortable position and
kneel down to pray, for sometimes you may get up from that posture and
say to yourself, "There, I think I prayed very well," yet, all the
while, there may not have been any true prayer in it at all! But when,
at another time, you say, "O Lord, I cannot pray! I feel as if I cannot
pray"–why, dear man, you are praying!
You are praying with all your might! There is more prayer, oftentimes,
in that sense of not being able to pray than there is in the Pharisaic
thought of having discharged the holy duty acceptably, for, in the one
case it is the soul speaking by the Holy Spirit and, in the other case,
it may be nothing more than the lips speaking into the air!
This is the prayer of one who despairs of all means. I wish I could
drive every sinner into that corner so that he would understand that as
no Popish priest can save him, and as no good works can save him, as no
sermon-hearing can save him, as no Bible-reading can save him, no
praying can save him–NOTHING that he can do can save him! He must get
to God and cast himself upon Christ or else he will be lost! To many of
you I might say, "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you
have eternal life, but you will not come to Christ that you might have
life." That is where the true life lies, in Christ, not in the
Scriptures, blessed as they are! I hope that no one will mistake my
meaning, for I am only putting the Scriptures as the Lord Jesus Christ
put them when He was speaking to the Jews. I desire to put the actual
coming to Christ higher than anything else that is possible to you. Get
away from all means, and just say, "Now they are all gone, and I will
go to God and say, 'O God, if You do not help me, from where shall I be
helped? Neither the barn floor nor the winepress can help me now–there
is a famine in Samaria! I would gladly eat up the fruit of my own soul,
yet it cannot satisfy me! I must go to You, my Father, for all around
me I see husks which swine may eat, but I cannot. I must have You.'"
Notice, also, dear Friends, that this is the prayer of
faintness–"their tongue fails for thirst." Oh, what blessed prayer
comes out of a heart that faints away on the bosom of Christ! What
powerful pleading there is in that very act! It is abject weakness
making the most mighty appeal it can to Almighty Love. "There, Lord,
there is nothing more that I can do. There is no hope for me, in Heaven
or on earth, apart from You. Now, if I perish, I perish. But will
You–can You–let me die?" No, He cannot and He will not let us die,
for now comes the step upwards! You have taken one already in that
silent heart-prayer.
Now comes the declaration of God–"I the Lord will hear them, I the God
of Israel will not forsake them." Is it not something that God hears
you? I think that I have frequently had to explain this word by
speaking of the poor woman who was so pleased to see her minister. She
was very poor and so was her minister. What good, then, did he do her?
Did he speak to her a very comforting word? No. The good man did not
happen, that day, to be in much of a mood to do so, yet he did that
Sister a deal of good, she said. Why? Because he let her talk and she
just told him all her troubles–and he looked sympathetic, for that is
how he felt–and that was just what she needed! She needed somebody who
would listen to her. It is wonderfully condescending on God's part to
listen to us. Many of our complaints are only rubbish, yet He hears
them patiently. Sometimes when people begin groaning and grumbling, I
wish I was down the next street–but God is so patient and
long-suffering that He hears all that His people say. Oh, what things
you and I have had to tell Him! We did not like to tell anybody else,
but we have felt that we must reveal it to Him. And we have done so
very faintly and feebly, yet He has been listening to us–"I the Lord
will hear them."
You know, dear Friends, that you have only to get a hearing from God
and you know what the consequence will be when your Heavenly Father
knows what things you have need of. He only needs to know and He will
surely supply all that you lack. So when you have got a hearing from
God, you have got everything! There it is in our text, "I the Lord will
hear them." We say that God is "a prayer-hearing and a prayer-answering
God." That is quite true, but it is not a Biblical expression. David
said, "O You that hears prayer, unto You shall all flesh come." It is
enough for Him to hear it. If He hears it, He will be quite certain to
be moved with compassion and to come to the help of His child. It is
all well with you, my Brother. It is all well with you, my Sister,
though you cannot pray to God in words. Only exhibit your wounds–let
their poor dumb mouths plead for you. They have pleaded! God has heard
them and He will answer you. You shall yet come up out of the dungeon
and from this time forth He will fulfill the promise, "I the God of
Israel will not forsake them."
You know what work God had with Jacob that night when the Angel
wrestled with him. The trouble with Jacob was that he was so terribly
strong–the chief work that had to be done upon him was to make him
weak. The Angel wrestled with him and he wrestled width the Angel. He
was a strong fellow, yet he never prevailed by his strength–and he
would not have prevailed had not the Angel touched him, so that his
sinew shrank and down he went. Then, as he fell, he still clung to the
Angel and said, "I will not let You go, except You bless me." That fall
of his won the day–it was the lame Jacob who took the prey! It is the
God of Israel, also, who will bless you, but He must first touch you
and make the sinew
shrink. You must be nothingand nobodybefore God will help you. I have
observed that whenever God has given success to my own preaching, I
have had a time of sore soul-trouble either before it or afterwards. I
have noticed that some Brothers who have suddenly come to the front and
have apparently been very useful, have generally become top-heavy if
the press has not abused them, or if they have not had some trying
affliction–and you hear the sad news concerning them that they have
gone astray. But when God ballasts the ship well–when He takes down
the topsails–when He makes the vessel have a trial trip in stormy
weather, then He is often pleased to put many of His saints on board
such a ship as that! So, Brother, be thankful if you are a tried man,
and believe that God is going to bless you. Be thankful, Brothers, if
you have had an experience of this horrible thirst–if your tongue has
been made to cleave to the roof of your mouth in anguish of ungratified
desire after God. If you have been ground to pieces, like fine flour in
the mill, now may you be offered unto God! If you have been slain, now
may you be a sacrifice unto the Most High! But there must be the
sentence of death in yourselves. There must be a breaking, and a
grinding, and a tearing, or else it is not likely that there will be
the sweet shining of Jehovah's face and perpetual joy and peace!
I have been all this while trying to fish–I wonder whether, by God's
Grace, I have caught the one for whom my hook was baited? Is there
anybody here who has not any good thing in himself at all? Is there any
poor wretch who feels that he is only fit to be swept up by the devil
with a broom, and to be cast into the fire? Is that how you feel–as if
you were the offscouring of all things and, in your own esteem, not
worthy for God to tread on–such a thing as never should have been in
existence–and, being here, ought to be put out of existence as soon as
possible? O you nothing, Christ is willing to be your All-in-All!
O you naked one, here is a garment to cover you! O you hungry one, here
is food for you! My Lord seeks after you who are downtrodden, you who
lie on the dunghill, forked out and ready to be spread on the field as
if you were only so much manure. Still He calls you! Come and trust
Him. You have nothing else to trust to. You have no other refuge, so
fly to Christ! Fall down before your God, fall flat on your face, man,
woman–and then, when the great shell bursts, which you are now
dreading–not a fragment of it shall strike you! Your safety lies in
casting yourself upon the mercy and Grace of God!
Say, "It must be mercy, great mercy, nothing but mercy, that can meet
my case. I am a lost, ruined, undone sinner, but I believe in the great
love, Grace and mercy of God in the Person of His dear Son. And now,
down I fall, trusting in Jesus crucified." You are a saved man if there
lives one! Trust thus in Jesus and you have, in that very act, passed
from death unto life! Therefore, go your way in peace. The Lord who
killed you, has made you alive! The Lord who wounded you, has healed
you. May His blessing abide upon everyone of you, for Christ's sake.
Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ZECHARIAH 12:10-14; 111, 2.
Zechariah 12:10. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the
inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of Grace and of supplications.
This is a promise concerning Israel. Long have the Jews rejected the
Christ, but the day is coming when they shall acknowledge Jesus of
Nazareth to be the promised Messiah. In that day this promise will be
fulfilled. God must always give "the Spirit of Grace" before men will
pray aright. And wherever Grace is given, there is always true prayer.
10. And they shall look upon Me whom they havepierced, and they shall
mourn for Him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in
bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
Discovering that they have rejected the true Messiah, they will be
overcome with the most acute grief that was ever endured–grief
altogether inconceivable.
11. In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the
mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Me-giddon. One of the greatest
mourning that was ever known was that when Josiah was slain in battle
and the people lamented that their best of kings was so early taken
away from them. Such shall be the sorrow that shall fall upon repenting
Israel.
12. And the land shall mourn, every family apart. There shall be
universal mourning throughout the whole land, yet it shall be special
and particular to each household–"every family apart."
12-14. "The family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart;
the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; the
family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of
Shimei apart, and their wives apart; all the families that remain,
every family apart, and their wives apart True repentance is the
distinct act of each individual. It cannot, as a rule, be performed in
the mass. There is a general repentance which, like that of the
Ninevites, has a special excellence about it because it affects a whole
city or nation, but that is not the kind of repentance which is
described here. In this case, the sharpness of personal conviction of
sin cuts and wounds the conscience of each individual and there is a
bitter cry uttered by each one as if he were the only sinner in the
world. Oh, how sincerely you and I would repent if we felt as if we
were the only ones who had ever broken God's Law. Yet such a repentance
as that we must feel if we would be personally forgiven.
Zechariah 13:1. In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the
house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for
uncleanness. They shall see their pardon when they have truly seen
their sin. When once the foulness of their transgression is perceived,
then the fountain of cleansing shall be perceived, too. No man ever
knows the precious-ness of the God-given remedy till he has felt the
force of the terrible disease. No one by faith plunges into the crystal
Fountain of perfect cleansing without first lamenting the filthiness
which needs to be removed!
2. And it shall come to pass in that day, says the LORD of Hosts, that
I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall
no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the
unclean spirit to pass out of the land. Where there is pardon, there is
sure to be sanctification. The idols must fall and the false prophets
must go. We cannot have our sins and have a Savior, too. If we have
Christ to blot out our sin, we must have the same Christ to remove sin
as to its authority, power and dominion over us!