C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.”-1 John 3:22-24.

I thought of addressing you this morning upon the importance of prayer, and I designed earnestly to stir you up to pray for me and for the Lord’s work in this place. Truly, I do not think I could have had a more weighty subject, or one which weighs more upon my soul. If I were only allowed to offer one request to you it would be this-“Brethren, pray for us.” Of what use can our ministry be without the divine blessing, and how can we expect the divine blessing unless it be sought for by the Church of God? I would say it even with tears, “Brethren, pray for us:” do not restrain prayer: on the contrary, be abundant in intercession, for so, and so only, can our prosperity as a church be increased, or even continued. But then, the question occurred to me, what if there should be something in the church which would prevent our prayers being successful? That is a previous question, and one which ought to be considered most earnestly even before we exhort you to intercession; because as we have already been taught by the first chapter of Isaiah, the prayers of an unholy people will soon become abominations to God. “When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear.” Churches may fall into such a state that their devotions will be an iniquity; “even the solemn meeting” will be a weariness unto the Lord. There may be evils in the heart of any one of us which may render it impossible for God, in consistency with his own character and attributes, to have any regard to our intercessions. If we regard iniquity in our hearts the Lord will not hear us. According to our text, there are some things which are essential to prevalence in prayer. God will hear all true prayer, but there are certain things which the people of God must possess, or else their prayers will fall short of the mark. The text tells us, “Whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight,” Now this morning, the subject of consideration will be the essentials to power in prayer; what we must do, what we must be, what we must have, if we are to prevail habitually with God in prayer, as a matter of constant fact. Let us learn how to become Elijahs and Jacobs.

I shall begin, first, by considering the essentials of power in prayer. We must make a few distinctions at the outset. I take it there is a great difference between the prayer of a soul that is seeking mercy and the prayer of a man who is saved. I would say to every person present, whatever his character, if you sincerely seek mercy of God through Jesus Christ you shall have it. Whatever may have been your previous condition of life, if now penitently you seek Jehovah’s face, through the appointed Mediator, he will be found of you. If the Holy Spirit has taught thee to pray, hesitate no longer, but hasten to the cross, and there rest thy guilty soul on Jesus. Qualifications for the sinner’s first prayer I know of none except sincerity; but we must speak in a different way to those of you who are saved. You have now become the people of God, and while you shall be heard just as the sinner would be heard, and shall daily find the needful grace which every seeker receives in answer to prayer, yet you are now a child of God and you are under a special discipline peculiar to the regenerated family. In that discipline answers to prayer occupy a high position, and are of eminent use. There is something for a believer to enjoy over and above bare salvation; there are mercies, and blessings, and comforts, and favours, which render his present life useful, happy and honourable, and these he shall not have irrespective of character. They are not vital matters with regard to salvation; those the believer possesses unconditionally, for they are covenant blessings; but we now refer to the honours and the dainties of the house, which are given or withheld according to our obedience as the Lord’s children. If you neglect the conditions appended to these, your heavenly Father will withhold them from you. The essential blessings of the covenant of grace stand unconditioned; the invitation to seek for mercy is addressed to those who have no qualifications whatever, except their need: but come inside the divine family as saved men and women, and you will find that other choice blessings are given or withheld according to our attention to the Lord’s rules in his family. To give a common illustration: If a hungry person were at your door, and asked for bread, you would give it him, whatever might be his character; you will also give your child food, whatever may be his behaviour; you will not deny your child anything that is necessary for life; you will never proceed in any course of discipline against him, so as to deny him his needful food, or a garment to shield him from the cold; but there are many other things which your child may desire, which you will give him if he be obedient, but which you will not give if he be rebellious to you. I take it, that this illustrates how far the paternal government of God will push this matter, and where it will not go.

Understand also, that the text refers not so much to God’s hearing a prayer of his servants now and then, for that he will do, even when his servants are out of course with him, and when he is hiding his face from them; but the power in prayer here intended is continuous and absolute power with God; so that to quote the words of the text, “whatsoever we ask of him we receive.”

For this prayer there are certain pre-requisites and essentials of which we have now to speak, and the first is child-like obedience: “Whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments.” If we are destitute of this the Lord may say to us as he did to his people Israel, “Ye have forsaken me, and served other gods, wherefore I will deliver you no more. Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen.” Any father will tell you that for him to grant the request of a disobedient child would be to encourage rebellion in the family, and render it impossible for him to rule in his own house. It is often incumbent upon the parent to say, “My child, you did not listen to my word just now, and, therefore, I cannot listen to yours.” Not that the father does not love, but that he does love the child, and because of his love, he feels bound to show his displeasure by refusing the request of his erring offspring. God acteth with us as we should act towards our refractory children, and if he sees that we will go into sin and transgress, it is a part of his kind paternal discipline to say, “I will shut out your prayer, when you cry unto me; I will not hear you when you entreat of me; I will not destroy you, you shall be saved, you shall have the bread of life, and the water of life, but you shall have no more: the luxuries of my kingdom shall be denied you, and anything like special prevalence with me in prayer you shall not possess. That thus the Lord deals with his own people is clear from the Eighty-first Psalm: “Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries. He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out the rock should I have satisfied thee.” Why, if the disobedient child of God had the promise put into his hands-“Whatsoever ye ask in prayer, ye shall receive,” he would be sure to ask for something that would bolster him up in his rebellion, he would be asking for provision for his own lust, and aids for his rebellion. This can never be tolerated. Shall God pander to our corruptions? Shall he find fuel for the flames of carnal passion? A self-willed heart hankers after greater liberty that it may be the more obstinate; a haughty spirit longs for greater elevation that it may be prouder still; a slothful spirit asks for greater ease that it may be yet more indolent; and a domineering spirit asks for more power that it may have more opportunities of oppression. As is the man such will his prayer be-a rebellious spirit offers self-willed and proud prayers. Shall God listen to such prayers as these? It cannot be. He will give us what we ask if we keep his commandments, but if we become disobedient and reject his government he also will reject our prayers, and say: “If ye walk contrary to me, I also will walk contrary to you: with the froward, I will show myself froward.” Happy shall we be if through divine grace we can say with David, “I will wash my hands in innocency; so will I compass thine altar, O Lord.” This will never be perfect innocency, but it will at least be innocence of the love of sin and of wilful revolt from God.

Next to this is another essential to victorious prayer, viz., child-like reverence. Notice the next sentence: We receive what we ask, “because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” We do not allow children when they have a command from their father to question its propriety or wisdom; obedience ends where questioning begins. A child’s standard of its duty must not become the measure of the father’s right to command: good children say, “Father has bidden us to do so and so, and therefore we will do it, for we delight to please him always.” The weightiest reason for a loving child’s action is the persuasion that it would please his parents; and the strongest thing that can be said to hold back a gracious child, is to prove that such a course of action would displease his parents. It is precisely so with us towards God, who is a perfect parent, and therefore we may without fear of mistake always make his pleasure the rule of right, while the rule of wrong may safely remain that which would displease him. Suppose any of us should be self-willed, and say, “I shall not do what pleases God, I shall do what pleases myself.” Then, observe, what would be the nature of our prayers? Our prayers might then be summed up in the request, “Let me have my own way?” And can we expect God to consent to that? Are we to be, not only lords over God’s heritage but over God himself? Would you have the Almighty resign the throne to place a proud mortal there? If you have a child in your house who has no respect whatever for his father, but who says, “I want to have my own way in all things;” if he comes to you with a request, will you stoop to him? Will you allow him to dictate to you, and forget the honour due to you? Will you say, “Yes, my dear child, I recognise your importance, you shall be lord in the house, and whatsoever you ask for you shall have!” What kind of a house would that be? I fear there are some such houses, for there are foolish parents who suffer their children to become their masters and so make a rod for their own backs: but God’s house is not ordered so: he will not listen to his self-willed children, except it be to hear them in anger, and to answer them in wrath, Remember how he heard the prayer of Israel for flesh, and when the meat was yet in their mouths it became a curse to them. Many persons are chastened by obtaining their own desires, even as backsliders are filled with their own devices. We must have a child-like reverence of God, so that we feel, “Lord, if what I ask for does not please thee neither would it please me. My desires are put into thy hands to be corrected: strike the pen through every petition that I offer which is not right, and, Lord, put in whatever I have omitted, even though I might not have desired it had I recollected it. Good Lord, if I ought to have desired it, hear me as if I had desired it. ‘Not as I will, but as thou wilt.’ ” Now I think you can see that this yielding spirit is essential to continual prevalence with God in prayer; the reverse is a sure bar to eminence in supplication. The Lord will be reverenced by those who are round about him. They must have an eye to his pleasure in all that they do and all that they ask, or he will not look upon them with favour.

In the third place, the text suggests the necessity of child-like trust: “And this is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ.” Everywhere in Scripture faith in God is spoken of as necessary to successful prayer. We must believe that God is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him, or else we have not prayed at all; but in proportion to our faith will be the success of our prayer. It is a standing rule of the kingdom, “According to thy faith, so be it unto thee.” Remember how the Holy Spirit speaks by the mouth of the apostle James: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.” The text speaks of faith in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, which I understand to mean faith in his declared character, faith in his gospel, faith in the truth concerning his substitution and salvation. Or it may mean faith in the authority of Christ, so that when I plead with God and say, “Do it in the name of Jesus,” I mean, “Do for me as thou wouldst have done for Jesus, for I am authorised by him to use his name; do it for me as thou wouldst have done it for him.” He that can pray with faith in the name cannot fail, for the Lord Jesus has said, “If ye ask anything in my name, I will do it.” But there must be faith, and if there be no faith we cannot expect to be heard. Do you not see that? Let us come back to our family similitudes again. Suppose a child in the house does not believe his father’s word, and is constantly saying that he finds his mind full of doubts as to his father’s truthfulness; suppose, indeed, that he tells his brothers and sisters that his faith in his father is very weak. He mentions that wretched fact, but is not at all shocked that he should say such a thing, but he rather feels that he ought to be pitied, as if it were an infirmity which he could not avoid. Somehow or other he does not believe that his father speaks the truth, and he declares that, though he tries to believe his father’s promise, yet he cannot. I think a father so basely distrusted would not be in a very great hurry to grant such a son’s requests; indeed, it is very probable that the petitions of the mistrustful son would be such as could not be complied with, even if his father were willing to do so, since they would amount to a gratification of his own unbelief, and a dishonour to his parent. For instance, suppose this child should take it into his head to doubt whether his father would provide him with his daily food; he might then come to his father and say, “Father, give me enough money to last for the next ten years, for I shall then be a man, and shall be able to provide for myself. Give me money down to quiet my fears, for I am in great anxiety.” The father replies, “My son, what should I do that for?” And he gets for a reply, “I am very sorry to say it, dear father, but I cannot trust you; I have such a weak faith in you and your love that I am afraid one of these days you will leave me to starve, and therefore I should like to have something sure in the bank.” Which of you fathers would listen to a child’s request, if he sought such a thing? You would feel grieved that thoughts so dishonouring to yourself should pass through the mind of one of your own beloved ones; but you would not, and could not, give way to them. Let me, then, ask you to apply the parable to yourselves. Did you never offer requests which were of much the same character? You have been unable to trust God to give you day by day your daily bread, and therefore you have been craving for what you call “some provision for the future.” You want a more trusty provider than providence, a better security than God’s promise. You are unable to trust your heavenly Father’s word, a few bonds of some half-bankrupt foreign government you consider to be far more reliable; you can trust the Sultan of Turkey, or the Viceroy of Egypt, but not the God of the whole earth! In a thousand ways we insult the Lord by imagining “the things which are seen” to be more substantial than his unseen omnipotence. We ask God to give us at once what we do not require at present, and may never need at all; at bottom the reason for such desires may be found in a disgraceful distrust of him which makes us imagine that great stores are needful to ensure our being provided for. Brethren, are you not to blame here, and do you expect the Lord to aid and abet your folly? Shall God pander to your distrust? Shall he give you a heap of cankering gold and silver for thieves to steal, and chests of garments to feed moths? Would you have the Lord act as if he admitted the correctness of your suspicions and confessed to unfaithfulness? God forbid! Expect not, therefore, to be heard when your prayer is suggested by an unbelieving heart: “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him and he shall bring it to pass.”

The next essential to continued success in prayer is child-like love: “That we should believe on the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as he gave us commandment.” The great commandment after faith is love. As it is said of God, “God is love,” so may we say that “Christianity is love.” If we were each one incarnations of love, we should have attained to the complete likeness of Christ. We should abound in love to God, love to Christ, love to the church, love to sinners, and love to men everywhere. When a man has no love to God, he is in the condition of a child without love to his father. Shall his father promise absolutely to fulfil all the desires of his unloving, unfilial heart? Or, if a child has no love to his brothers and sisters, shall the father trust him with an absolute promise, and say, “Ask and it shall be given thee?” Why, the unloving son would impoverish the whole family by his selfish demands; regardless of all the rest of the household, he would only care to indulge his own passions. His request would ere long be-“Father, give me all the inheritance;” or, “Father, regulate the home to suit me, and make all my brothers submit to my wishes.” Vain of his personal appearance, like Absalom, who was proud of his hair, he would soon seek the kingdom for himself. Few Josephs can wear the garment of many colours, and not become household tyrants. Who would allow a prodigal to run off with the estate? Who would be so unwise as to instal a greedy, domineering brother in the seat of honour, above his brethren? Hence, you see that selfishness cannot be trusted with power in prayer. Unloving spirits, that love neither God nor men, cannot be trusted with great, broad, unlimited promises. If God is to hear us we must love God, and love our fellow-men; for, when we love God, we shall not pray for anything that would not honour God, and shall not wish to see anything happen to us which would not also bless our brethren. Our hearts will beat true to God and to his creatures, and we shall not be wrapped up in ourselves. You must get rid of selfishness before God can trust you with the keys of heaven; but when self is dead, then he will enable you to unlock his treasuries, and, as a prince, shall you have power with God and prevail.

Next to this, we must have childlike ways as well. Read the next verse: “He that keepeth his commandments, dwelleth in him, and he in him.” It is one of a child’s ways to love its home. The good child to whose requests its father always listens, loves no place so much as the dear old house where its parents live. Now he who loves and keeps God’s commandments is said to dwell in him-he has made the Lord his dwelling place, and abides in holy familiarity with God. In him our Lord’s words are fulfilled, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” Faith and love, like two cherubic wings, have borne up the believer’s soul above the world, and carried him near to the throne of God. He has become like God, and now it is that his prayers are such as God can answer; but until he is thus conformed to the divine mind, there must be some limit to the potency of his pleadings. To dwell in God is needful to power with God. Suppose one of you had a boy, who said, “Father, I do not like my home, I do not care for you; and I will not endure the restraints of family rule; I am going to live with strangers, but mark, father, I shall come to you every week, and I shall require many things of you; and I shall expect that you will give me whatever I ask from you.” Why, if you are at all fit to be at the head of the house, you will say, “My son, how can you speak to me in such a manner? If you are so self-willed as to leave my house, can you expect that I will do your bidding? If you utterly disregard me, can you expect me to support you in your cruel unkindness and wicked insubordination. No, my son; if you will not remain with me and own me as a father, I cannot promise you anything.” And so is it with God. If we will dwell with him, and commune with him, he will give us all things. If we love as he should be loved, and trust him as he ought to be trusted, then he will hear our requests; but if not it is not reasonable to expect it. Indeed, it would be a slur upon the divine character for him to fulfil unholy desires and gratify evil whims. “Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he will give thee the desires of thine heart,” but if thou hast no delight in God, and he is not thy dwelling place, he will not answer thee. He may give thee the bread of affliction and the water of affliction, and make life bitter to thee, but certainly he will not give thee what thy heart desires.

One thing more: It appears from the text that we must have a child-like spirit, for “Hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.” What is this but the Spirit of adoption-the Spirit which rules in all the children of God? The wilful who think and feel and act differently from God, must not expect that God will come round to their way of thinking and feeling and acting. The selfish who are actuated by the spirit of pride, the slothful who are actuated by the love of ease, must not expect that God will indulge them. The Holy Spirit if he rules in us, will subordinate our nature to his own sway, and then the prayers which spring out of our renewed hearts will be in keeping with the will of God, and such prayers will naturally be heard. No parent would think of listening to a wilful child, to a child that said, “I know my father does not wish me to have this, but I will have it.” Why, as a man you would not thus be twisted about by an upstart youngster. Shall God grant us that which we ask for when it is contrary to his holy mind? It must not be: such a possibility is not conceivable. The same mind must be in us which was also in Christ Jesus, and then we shall be able to say, “I know that thou hearest me always.”

But we must pass on, and occupy your attention for a few minutes, with another branch of the same subject.

In the second place we shall notice the prevalence of these essential things. If they be in us and abound, our prayers cannot be barren or unprofitable.

First, if we have faith in God, there is no question about God’s hearing our prayer. If we can plead in faith the name and blood of Jesus, we must obtain answers of peace. But a thousand cavils are suggested. Suppose these prayers concern the laws of nature, then the scientific men are against us. What of that? I will glory in giving these scientific men scope enough-I had almost said rope enough. I do not know of any prayer worth praying which does not come into contact with some natural law or other, and yet I believe in prayers being heard. It is said that God will not change the laws of nature for us, and I reply, “Whoever said he would!” The Lord has ways of answering our prayers irrespective of the working of miracles or suspending laws. He used to hear prayer by miracle, but as I have often said to you, that seems a rougher way of achieving his purpose; it is like stopping a vast machine for a small result, but he knows how to accomplish his ends and hear our prayers by I know not what secret means. Perhaps there are other forces and laws which he has arranged to bring into action just at times when prayer also acts, laws just as fixed, and forces just as natural as those which our learned theorizers have been able to discover. The wisest men know not all the laws which govern the universe, nay, nor a tithe of them. We believe that the prayers of Christians are a part of the machinery of providence, cogs in the great wheel of destiny, and when God leads his children to pray, he has already set in motion a wheel that is to produce the result prayed for, and the prayers offered are moving as a part of the wheel. If there be but faith in God, God must either cease to be, or cease to be true, or else he must hear prayer. The verse before the text says, “If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God; and whatsoever we ask, we receive of him.” He who has a clear conscience comes to God with confidence, and that confidence of faith ensures to him the answer of his prayer. Childlike confidence makes us pray as none else can. It makes a man pray for great things, which he would never have asked for if he had not learned this confidence; and makes him pray for little things which a great many are afraid to ask for, because they have not yet felt towards God the confidence of children. I have often felt that it needs more confidence in God to pray to him about a little thing than about great things. We fancy that our great things are somewhat worthy of God’s regard, though in truth they are little enough to him; and then we imagine that our little things must be so trifling that it would be almost an insult to bring them before him; whereas, we ought to know that what is very great to a child may be very little to its parent, and yet the parent does not measure the thing from his own point of view but from the child’s. You heard your little boy the other day crying bitterly. His mother called him and asked what ailed him? It was a splinter in his finger. Well, that was a small affair, you did not want to call in three surgeons to extract it, or raise a hue and cry in the public press. Bring a needle, and we will soon set it right. Oh, but what a great thing it was to that pretty little sufferer, as he stood there with eyes all wet with tears of anguish. It was a great concern to him. Now, did it occur to that boy that his pain was too small a thing, for his mother to attend to? Not at all; what were mothers and fathers made for but to look after the little wants of little children? And God our Father is a good father, he pities us as fathers pity their children, and condescends to us. He telleth the number of the stars, and calleth them all by their names, yet he healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. The same God who kindles the sun, has said, “I will not quench the smoking flax.” If you have but confidence in God, you will take your great things and your little things to him, and he will never belie your confidence, for he has said they that trust in him shall never be ashamed or confounded, world without end. Faith must succeed.

But next, love must succeed too, since we have already seen that the man who loves in the Christian sense is in accord with God. If you confine your love to your own family, you must not expect God to do so, and prayers narrowed within that circle he will disregard. If a man loves his own little self, and hopes everybody’s crop of wheat will fail, that his own produce may fetch a higher price, he certainly cannot expect the Lord to agree with such mean selfishness. If a man has heart enough to embrace all the creatures of God in his affection, while he yet prays specially for the household of faith, his prayers will be after the Divine mind. His love and God’s goodness run side by side. Though God’s love is like a mighty rolling river, and his is like a trickling brooklet, yet they both run in the same direction, and will both come to the same end. God always hears the prayers of a loving man, because those prayers are the shadows of his own decrees.

Again, the man of obedience is the man whom God will hear, because his obedient heart leads him to pray humbly, and with submission, for he feels it to be his highest desire that the Lord’s will should be done. Hence it is that the man or obedient heart prays like an oracle; his prayers are prophecies. Is he not one with God? Doth he not desire and ask for exactly what God intends? How can a prayer shot from such a bow ever fail to reach its target? If thy soul get into accord with God’s soul, thou wilt wish God’s own wishes. The difficulty is that we do not keep, as the word is, en rapport with God; but if we did, then we should strike the same note as God strikes; and though his would sound like thunder, and ours as a whisper, yet there would be a perfect unison-the note struck by prayer on earth would coincide with that which sounds forth from the decrees in heaven.

Again, the man who lives in fellowship with God will assuredly speed in prayer, because, if he dwells in God, and God dwells in him, he will desire what God desires. The believer in communion with the Lord desires man’s good, and so does God; he desires Christ’s glory, and so does God; he desires the church’s prosperity, and so does God; he desires himself to be a pattern of holiness, and God desires it too. If that man at any time has a desire which is not according to God’s will, it is the result of ignorance, seeing that man is but man, and not God, even when he is at the best he must err; but he provides for this defect by the form of his prayer, which always has this addendum at the end of it-“Lord, if I have asked, in this my prayer, for anything which is not according to thy mind, I beseech thee, do not regard me; and if any wish which I have expressed to thee-even though it be the desire which burns in my bosom above all other wishes-be a wish that is not right in thy sight, regard me not, my Father, but, in thy infinite love and compassion, do something better for thy servant than thy servant knows how to ask.” Now, when a prayer is after that fashion, how can it fail? The Lord looks out of the windows of heaven and sees such a prayer coming to him, just as Noah saw the dove returning to the ark, and he puts out his hand to that prayer, and as Noah plucked the dove into the ark, so does God pluck that prayer in unto him, and put it into his own bosom, and say, “Thou camest out of my bosom, and I welcome thee back to me: my Spirit indited thee, therefore will I answer thee.”

And here, again, let us say, our text speaks of the Christian man as being filled with God’s Spirit: “We know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.” Who knows the mind of a man but the spirit of a man? So, who knows the things of God but the Spirit of God? And if the Spirit of God dwells in us, then he tells us what God’s mind is; he makes intercession in the saints according to the will of God. It is sometimes imagined that men who have prevalence in prayer can pray for what they like; but I can assure you any one of these will tell you that that is not so. You may call upon such a man and ask him to pray for you, but he cannot promise that he will. There are strange holdings back to such men, when they feel, “they know not how or why, that they cannot pray effectual fervent prayers in certain cases, though they might desire to do so. Like Paul, when he essayed to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit suffered him not; so there are requests which we would naturally like to put up, but we are bound in spirit. There may apparently be nothing objectionable about the prayer; but the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he gives secret intimations when and where his chosen may hope to prevail. He gives you the promise that he will hear your believing prayer, you being a man that walks with him, filled with his Spirit; but he does not at the same time give you faith about every thing that everybody likes to put before you: on the contrary he gives you a discretion, a judgment, and a wisdom, and the Spirit maketh intercession in the saints according to the will of God.

Thus I think I have laid down the doctrine pretty clearly. Now a few minutes of practical improvement, as the old Puritans used to say. I only wish it may be of improvement to many of us.

The first is, we want to pray for a great blessing as a church. I think I should command your suffrages if I said we intend to pray God to send a blessing on the church at large. Very well. Have we the essentials for success? Are we believing in the name of Jesus Christ? Well, I think we are. I do not think fault could be found with the soundness of our faith, though much is to be confessed about the weakness of it. Let us pass on to the next question. Are we full of love to God and one another? The double commandment is, that we believe on the name of Jesus Christ and that we love one another. Do we love one another? Are we walking in love? There are none of us perfect in it. I will begin to confess by acknowledging I am not what I should be in that respect. Will you let the confession go round, and each one think how often we have done unloving things, and thought unloving things, and said unloving things, and listened to unloving gossip, and held back our hand unlovingly when we ought to have rendered help, and put forth our hand unlovingly to push down a man who was falling? If in the church of God there is a lack of love, we cannot expect prayer to be heard, for God will say, “you ask for prosperity. What for? To add more to a community which does not already love itself! You ask for conversions. What! to bring in others to join an unloving community.” Do you expect God to save sinners whom you do not love, and to convert souls whom you do not care a bit about? We must love souls into Christ, for, under God’s Holy Spirit, the great instrument for the conquest of the world is love, and if Christians will love more than Mahommedans do, and Jews do, they will overcome Mahommedans and Jews; and if they show less love, Mahommedans and Jews will overcome them. The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, is the master weapon, and next to that, is the loving carriage and generous conversation of Christians towards their fellow-men. How much of that have we got? Shall I say, how little?

Next, are we doing that which is pleasing in God’s sight? We cannot expect answers to prayer if we are not. Put the enquiry to yourselves all round. Let each church member, especially, answer that question. Have you been doing lately that which you would like Jesus Christ to see? Is your household ordered in such a way that it pleases God? Suppose Jesus Christ had visited your house this week, uninvited and unexpected: what would he have thought of that which he would have seen? “Oh,” says one, “I know so-and-so acts very inconsistently.” Sir, I pray you think of yourself! There is the point. Correct yourself. Unless the members of God’s church do that which is pleasing in his sight, they bar the door against prosperity; they prevent the prayers of the church from succeeding. Who wishes to be the man that stands in the way of the prosperity of God’s church through inconsistency of conduct? Who would be so guilty? God forgive some of you. We could speak of some even weeping, for, alas! though they profess to be the followers of Christ, they are so inconsistent that they are not friends, but enemies of the cross of Christ.

The next question is, do we dwell in God? The text says that if we keep his commandments God dwelleth in us and we in him. Is that so? I mean, during the day do we think of God? In our business are we still with God? A Christian is not to run unto God in the morning, and again at night, and use him as a shelter and a makeshift, as people do of an arch or a portico which they run under in a shower of rain; but we are to dwell in God, and live in him, from the rising of the sun until the going down thereof, making him our daily meditation, and walking as in his sight, feeling evermore, “Thou God seest me.” How is it with you, dear friends! O, let the question go from pew to pew and heart to heart, and mind-let each one answer for himself.

Lastly, does the Spirit of God actuate us, or is it another spirit? Do we wait upon God and say, “Lord, let thy Spirit tell me what to say in this case, and what to do; rule my judgment, subdue my passions, keep down my baser impulses, and let thy Spirit guide me. Lord, be thou to me better than myself; be soul and life to me, and in the triple kingdom of my spirit, soul, and body, good Lord, be thou supreme Master, that in every province of my nature thy law may be set up, and thy will may be regarded. We should have a mighty church if we were all of this mind; but the mixed multitude are with us, the mixed multitude that came out of Egypt, and these fall a-lusting; the mischief always begins with them. God save us as a church from losing his presence! The mixed multitude must be with us to try us, for the Lord hath said, “Let both grow together till the harvest,” and if we try to root up the tares we should root up the wheat also,-yet, at any rate, let us pray God to make the wheat be the stronger. One of two things always happens in a church. Either the wheat chokes the weeds or the weeds choke the wheat. God grant that the wheat may overtop the weeds in our case. God grant grace to his servants to be strong enough to overcome the evil which surrounds them, and, having done all, to stand to the praise of the glory of his grace, who also hath made us accepted in the Beloved. The Lord bless you, and be with you evermore. Amen and Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-1 John 3; Isaiah 1:10-20.

SPRING

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, March 30th, 1873, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“As the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.”-Isaiah 61:11.

During the past week the air has been balmy with the breath of spring, and all nature has felt the influence of the “ethereal mildness.” The earth-of which, through the long winter, we might have said, “she is not dead, but sleepeth”-has now awakened, and she beginneth already to put on her garments of glory and beauty. Wild flowers are springing up in the hedgerows, buds upon the trees are hastening to burst, the time of the singing of birds is come, and if the voice of the turtle be not heard in our land, yet we trust the winter is past-the rain is over and gone. Now, nature is not at work to amuse and please us merely-its mission is instruction. Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter are God’s four Evangelists, bringing each one a different version of the self-same gospel of divine love. Spring has its own peculiar evangel, and it is for us to read it, and to interpret it, by the light of God’s Spirit. A close analogy is often hinted at in the Old and New Testaments between the spring-time and the work of God in the hearts of men. As God has promised, in the outward world, that there shall be seed time, and then a harvest-winter and a following summer, so he declares, over and over again, that his word, which, when it goeth forth, is like unto the sowing, shall not return unto him void, but shall prosper in the thing whereto he hath sent it. As surely as in due season the earth bringeth forth her bud, and the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so shall God’s great purposes be accomplished, and righteousness and praise shall spring forth before all the nations.

The teaching of this morning is, that there is a spiritual spring-time appointed of God, and it will surely come; as certainly as spring comes to the earth physically, so surely will it come to the church spiritually: as certainly as God keeps his covenant with the elements, so will he keep his covenant with his church and with his Son.

I shall want you this morning first to contemplate this truth in reference to the broad field of the world. Let our meditations go abroad, and let them range through history and into prophecy. God will surely in the great world at large cause the principles of righteousness which bring praise to his name to spring forth before all mankind.

This leads us first of all to expect that there may be in God’s work, and in our work for God, a period of unrequited labour. The analogy between the processes of nature and God’s work in the church holds good not only as to the revivals of spring, but as to the depressing incidents of winter. There is a time when the husbandman is occupied with the plough and with the scattering of the seed, while from day to day he sees no result from his labour. He trusts to the earth his golden grain, and buries it in hopes of a future upspringing, but month after month lie has no return. He watches patiently, he sees the dreary months go round, but not a single ear is brought home to give him promise; much less do ample sheaves reward his toil. “Dread winter reigns tremendous o’er the conquered year,” the vegetable world lies dead. As it is in the natural world we must expect it to be in the spiritual world; there will ordinarily be a time of unrequited sowing for the Lord’s labourers. To a great extent this was so with the church of God in her early history; then she was fitly imaged in these words-“a sower went forth to sow.” True, through the infinite compassion of the great Husbandman, there were souls saved at once by the preaching of the gospel; but yet the wide spread of the gospel was not a work of a few months-years of self-denial were needed. Good men had to toil throughout the whole of their lives, ay, and to lay down those lives, too, by painful and bloody deaths, and yet at the first Christ’s kingdom did not come. Generation after generation of holy martyrs and confessors went to prison and to death to bear testimony to the truth as it is in Jesus. It was the church’s time of sowing, and her seed was steeped in tears and blood. God’s presence and power did not so much reveal themselves in immediate success as in patient endurance, heroic fortitude, and boundless self-sacrifice. Holy hymns were not sung by assembled thousands where passers-by could hear them, but in the crypts and in the catacombs the righteous praised the Lord. The word of God was in those days hidden away like a buried thing, concealed like the seed-corn beneath the clods. The church parted with her holiest sons, who died that she might live, and grow, and multiply, and subdue the earth; but for many years it seemed as if the sacrifice had been made in vain, for her truths were still the scoff of the age, the butt of perpetual ridicule. It looked as if her principles, as well as her martyrs, would be buried. Imperial tyrants boasted that they would exterminate Christianity, and leave to the church neither root nor branch, nor place, nor name. This was but the Lord’s winter, with its bitter chills and driving tempests and stormy winds, fulfilling his word; and we also must expect to see the great sowing work of the church proceed under the same trying conditions. We must not always reckon to see nations converted the moment the gospel is preached to them; and especially where new ground has been broken up, where countries have just received the gospel message, we must not be disappointed if neither to-day nor to-morrow we are rewarded with abundant results. God’s plan involves ploughing, sowing, and waiting, and after these the up-springing and the harvest. “Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and the latter rain.”

While the seed is under the ground a thousand adversaries present themselves, all apparently in array against its ever rising from the earth. The seed might look up from the soil and say of the frosts and storms of winter, “all these things are against me.” It was but a few weeks ago that the earth wherein the husbandman had sown his grain was frozen as though it were of iron; beneath his foot it was hard as the share with which he had formerly ploughed it. Then came the snow and buried the green blades beneath its fleecy showers. Who could imagine that harvests would spring forth from frost-bound clods or from beneath so thick a shroud of snow? Then came the rain, again and again. It deluged everything. The weeping months followed each other in mournful procession. It has rained this year as our forefathers have seldom seen it; and yet despite frost, snow, rain, and flood, seeds are peeping forth in the garden, the almond blossom is in its beauty, the golden cup of the crocus is brimmed with sunshine, and the trees are bursting into leaf. So we must expect to see in the Church of God: desperate obstacles will obstruct the spread of the gospel, fearful disappointments will wither hope, solemn calamities will overthrow success, iniquity will abound, and the love of many will wax cold! When we survey the condition of affairs apart from faith in God, it may even seem to us that our cause is hopeless, and the further prosecution of it a forlorn endeavour. We must expect to see it so. If it be so in nature so may it also be in grace, and I sometimes think that we have fallen upon such times even now. Probably there never was a period less favourable to the advance of true religion than the present one. I admit that there is a tendency among men advanced in years to depreciate the present, and to say that the former times were better than now; with that feeling I think I have little or no sympathy, neither my age nor my temperament lead me in that direction, yet I fear that in some respects, the present era is peculiarly trying to the Christian church in this country. Our nation has grown enormously rich; unequalled prosperity has continued with us for several years, and out of this has grown a worldly and luxurious spirit. Pride and fulness of bread have taken off men’s thoughts from God and his salvation. Boundless luxury has bred indifference to the gospel. The lower classes, as they are called, are less than ever within the reach of the gospel. In some districts working men appear to have no mind for anything but their beer cans, their dogs, and their sports: even politics do not stir them as once they did, and religion they regard as a matter of perfect indifference. Extra wages, which should mean mental elevation and increased family comfort, are converted into increased self-indulgence and profligacy. The enormous amount derived by our national revenue from the sale of strong drink, largely represents excess of riot and drunkenness. God’s great mercy to us, instead of leading us gratefully to serve him, is perverted into an occasion for greater sin. Alas! that it should be so. But those who love the cause of God and truth must not be discouraged, as though some new thing had happened unto us; dark times and wintry seasons there have been before, sharp frosts and drenching rains are no novelties, we are passing through a spiritual winter, but the spring shall surely come, and with it spiritually-

“A season of refreshing,

A waking as from sleep,

A longing and a singing

That make the pulses leap.

A sense of renovation,

Of freshness and of health,

A casting off of worldiness,

A love for heavenly wealth.”

While our text leads us to expect a time of unprofitable sowing, it excites the hope of a sacred spring time. God’s gospel cannot perish, his kingdom cannot fail, his truth cannot be overcome! And that for many reasons, among which are these: That which is sown in the garden springs up from out of the ground because there is vitality in it. The life is dormant for a while, but it displays itself in due season. There is at the appointed hour for all the buried seeds a bursting of grave clothes, a rending of sepulchres, and an upheaval of the earth, and then in resurrection freshness comes forth the blade, to be succeeded by the ear, and that by the full corn in the ear. Even so the truth of God is a living and incorruptible seed which liveth and abideth for ever; or, to use another figure, it is as the teil tree and as the oak, whose substance is in them when they lose their leaves. It is not possible that the truth of God should perish; even if it be cut down, at the scent of water it will bud and send forth new shoots. Life in garden seeds may be destroyed, under certain influences the life-germ may perish, but the living truth of God is immortal and unconquerable. The Lord has himself declared that it abideth for ever: “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand for ever.” Therefore do we assuredly look for a blessed spring time, we wait to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, yea we expect to see the universal reign of the everlasting gospel.

But seed springs up not only because of its own vitality, but because of its surrounding circumstances. Put the seed away in the mummy’s hand, and hide it in the pyramid, and though it may be vital, still it is not quickened into growth. The seed under a clod waits awhile till all its surroundings become propitious, and then it begins to germinate. The moisture and the warmth co-operate, and the soil begins to yield its nourishment to the little life-germ. So we may rest assured that God will make all things propitious in his providence to the growth of his own truth. He knows under what conditions religious thought will spring up in the minds of men, and he can create those conditions; he has created them, and he will! The dews, are they not in his hand? The rains, doth he not pour them forth from his palm? The sunlight, is it not the smiling of his face; and the heat, is it not the breath of his love? Is not the residue of the Spirit with him? Can he not open the bottles of heaven? Is he not the Father of Lights also, who can pour forth the brightness of his grace upon mens hearts? We may rest assured that because all conditions are in the hand of God, and he can order them according to his own will, he will cause the seed which he has sown in the earth to spring up. Why, methinks I may say of the gospel, that, under the divine superintendence, everything is in league with it. They fight from heaven-the stars in their courses fight for the gospel of Jesus. For it winds blow and tempests rage. It is in league with the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field are at peace with it. The stupendous wheels of providence as they revolve are full of eyes, and all those eyes are fixed upon Christ and upon his cross, and as they turn upon their mystic axles, they revolve for ever with one design; methought I heard them speak as they move onward, and a voice from among them said, “let the name of God be glorious, and let the Christ of God be king among the people.” The gospel must spread, therefore; it is, in itself, vital and energetic, and the Lord of hosts ordereth all things to secure its growth.

But the corn comes not up out of the earth because it is vital, or because of its surroundings merely, for, as we believe, there is the actual power of God at work throughout nature. We have never been able to agree with the theory that nature once started, works of itself, like a clock which has been wound up. We believe that its operations conform to certain laws, but there must be some power to carry out the laws, or else they would be a dead letter. Everything that exists is a continuous emanation from the Most High, and everything that is done anywhere in the world, God lendeth the strength and giveth the power whereby it is done. If we were to see performed upon this stage, in a single moment, the turning of one grain of wheat into a full-grown ear, we should exclaim, “wonderful!” and regard it as a miracle! But if God is pleased to take some few months in performing the same operation, it is not the less wonderful. If spring came but once in a century, what wonder it would excite in all hearts! If it had never happened but once, it would be considered to be the crown of miracles, and sceptics would ridicule those who believed in its possibility; yet God creates our harvests as surely as if there never had been a harvest before, and he forms our ripe fields by his omnipotence as truly even as he fashioned man in the garden of Eden, perfect at once! God is alive, and God is at work; he hath not betaken himself into his secret chambers and shut the door behind him, and left us orphans in the world, and the earth without a ruler and without a friend! He worketh everywhere; in the deepest caverns of the sea and among the highest pinnacles of the heavens: and there, he worketh among the violets of yonder bank, and the primroses which peer forth from amidst the sere leaves around the underwood of the copse: and there also, where the bees begin to hum, the lark to sing, and the lambs to play. It is God that sendeth “Spring, the Awakener,” to fill earth’s bosom with flowers. He doeth it all! And it is because of this that we expect the gospel to flourish-not merely because the word of God is vital, and because God will order Providence in its behalf, but because he is at work in it-mysteriously at work it is true, but certainly at work, for the Spirit of the living God which was given at Pentecost has never gone back to heaven; it is here still, and he that wrought amongst the crowds of the streets of Jerusalem and made them cry out “Sirs, what must we do to be saved?” is working in our cities even at this day. Where Jesus Christ is preached, his Spirit is pledged to be present. God’s Spirit worketh evermore. He is breaking hard hearts as the winter pulverises the clods; he is melting stubborn wills into obedience as the vernal showers soften the hard earth; and he is awakening the young germs of hope, and prayer, and desire, just as the warm sunlight is calling up the green blades and the flowers. The Spirit of God worketh ever. O ye adversaries of the gospel, it is not the gospel alone that ye have to stand against, but the God over all, blessed for ever, omnipotent and eternal, is engaged in the battle! If the gospel be his sword, ye may well tremble at its edge, but ye may be much more afraid when ye remember the arm which wields that deadly weapon, which can divide asunder soul and spirit. The gospel is his arrow and his bow, but he who draws that bow and directs that arrow is the same God who launches thunderbolts in the day of tempest, and touches the hills and they smoke. The God of the gospel is he who wheels the earth in its orbit, and marshals all the stars. Jehovah invisible, but also almighty, is engaged to show himself strong for the gospel, therefore do we expect victory. Despite the times of depression and of sorrow, days of refreshing must come from the presence of the Lord. The spring must follow the winter: “As the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and peace to spring forth before all the nations.”

If at any time our mind should grow desponding concerning the progress of the gospel, and I confess mine is very heavy at times, it ought to encourage us to remember that the gospel will conquer, not because it looks as if it would, but because God has declared and decreed that it shall do so. I know of no efforts which have been made to promote the advent and progress of spring. We have had a blustering March; we had a cold February; we were deluged with rain and swathed in mist all through November, December, and January; I saw nothing in the atmosphere or the sky to help on spring. Did it want any helping? Did it need human aid? No; the earth pursued its ordained orbit, and every hour it neared the point where spring, laden with flowers, lay in kind ambush, longing to scatter her garlands over the glad earth. God wants no helpers to create spring: he sends it in his own time, and lo it cometh. Even thus the Lord stands in no need of creature help to effect the designs of his grace. Spring has never lingered until assembled Parliaments have permitted and commanded its coming; neither has it waited for Emperors to smile, and say-“Let the buds come forth.” Far away in the dense forest, and here in merry England in a thousand woods, the sap is flowing in the trees, and myriads of buds are swelling, but not by man’s art or aid. The daffodils are blooming in the meadows where no man planted them, and the bluebells in the dells where gardener’s spade has never come. Yea, and I know right well, that the dew of divine grace and the showers of regenerating love tarry not for man, nor wait for the sons of men. If there had been a general revolt against the spring, it would not have been delayed. If the kings of the earth had set themselves, and the rulers taken counsel together, no single gleam of sunlight would have hesitated to shine forth. If the Pope himself, in his infallibility, had issued a bull forbidding the sun to re-cross the equator, and advance to the northern tropic, I venture to predict that it would have pursued the even tenor of its way, despite the bidding of his Holiness. None can stay the marches of the year, or turn the seasons from their course. Who is he that can fight against the Lord, or withstand the power of the Most High? Our help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth. We do not reckon upon the progress of the gospel because we have a company of rich men to help us, a goodly fellowship of eloquent divines to advocate the cause, and a considerable number of respectable persons to support the good work. No, sirs, our Master has not come to such a beggarly state of dependence that he needs a mortal’s help. He has told us that “cursed is he that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm,” and he has not come to trust in man himself and make flesh his arm: “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.” As comes the spring by God, Jehovah’s own arrangement; so shall come the time of the church’s triumph, and the victory of truth, by God’s appointment, let men say what they will.

Be it never forgotten that the disheartening circumstances of the winter may have been all of them promotive of the success of the spring. I cannot tell what connection there may have been between the sharp frost and the colouring of the cowslip, but I have no doubt that if the flowers could speak they could tell. I do not know what is the connection between the drenching showers and the gushes of song from the woodlands, but doubtless the larks and the thrushes hold the secret among them; neither do I know how howling winds are linked with leafy bowers, but what the oak or the elm could say if they were permitted to prophecy for a while it is not for me to guess. There is an intimate inter-marriage and commingling of the dark and of the bright, the chill and the warm; and from this has come forth the joy of spring. Every child knows that March winds and April showers bring forth the sweet May flowers; so all the sorrows and troubles which the church has borne, and shall yet bear, are mothers of the victories she shall yet achieve. Her days would never be so bright if her nights had not been so dark. Believe, therefore, that the worst times are working on towards something better. Beloved, we have God’s promise to sustain us in all our efforts to spread abroad his kingdom. He has himself declared that, “As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” The Lord God cannot lie, he must keep his promise; and he cannot be disappointed by unforeseen difficulties; his power is irresistible; therefore we feel quite sure that his word must win the day!

Bethink you for a moment, you who are growing weary through the long night, whose watches seem as if they would never end: I hear you cry, “When will the day break, and the shadows flee away;” be not dispirited, but encourage yourselves with these thoughts. Remember what a sowing has already gone before. Christ sowed the earth with his own self. A sower went forth to sow, and as he sowed, he passed by the garden of Gethsemane, and cast a precious handful there, steeped in his own bloody sweat: thence he went up to Gabbatha and sowed full handfuls there, where the ploughers made deep furrows: then he went up to the cross, and you know how he sowed there, for there he was that grain of wheat which fell into the ground and died, and therefore cannot abide alone, but must bring forth much fruit. Did God himself become man to save men, and shall not men be saved? Did Christ himself come from heaven to fight with the dread enemy, and did he fight him and return victorious with dyed garments from Bozrah, and shall the enemy win the day after all? Is Calvary nothing? Is Gethsemane nothing? The Son of God in anguish and in death, is he nothing? Yet so it must be if the gospel do not conquer, and the world be not converted to God: “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.”

Remember, too, who is the husbandman of this field. He has not bidden his church till the world without divine help: “My Father is the husbandman.” God himself is watching over the broad field of the world to promote the growth of what the Saviour sowed, and shall he fail? Shall it be said at the close of the great Husbandman’s work, there is no result from it? The idols are still firm on their pedestals; Antichrist sits upon her seven hills in pompous state, and the simple gospel is still in the minority! Will the Almighty fail? How think you, sirs? Can ommipotence be defeated? No! It cannot be; as Jehovah liveth, it cannot be! The living God must conquer. The right hand of the Lord shall be exalted, for it doeth valiantly. He may for a while permit the conflict to tremble in the balances, but divine power must overcome; we cannot dream otherwise.

Moreover, there is the Spirit of God himself, as well as the Father and the Son, and he has designed to dwell in the midst of the Church. The Spirit of God is here, and is specially at work. He moved upon chaos, and turned it into order; he it is also that quickeneth the dead, and shall he be defeated and disappointed in the conversion of this world? Let the thought be accursed, for it is near akin to blasphemy, if it be not blasphemy itself. The triune God must make the knowledge of himself to “cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.” God’s honour is engaged in the matter. On this battle-field of the world he has flung down the gauntlet to the powers of hell, and Satan has taken up the gage of battle, and the fight has raged long, but it must end in victory for God, it cannot be otherwise! My soul loathes the theory of some that this world will get worse, and worse, and worse, and never will be won to obedience to the Lord God. Scripture is against that theory-a theory so desponding, so fitted to make God’s soldiers fling away the sword. Surely there shall come a time when the nations shall know the Lord, and the multitude of the people shall worship before the most High God. The winter shall be succeeded by its spring, therefore be ye stedfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

Now, I shall spend just a minute or two upon the same topic, setting it in another light. Dear brethren, I want you to contemplate this truth in reference to the garden committed to your own personal culture. As God’s people you have all something to do for him; I want you to do it, and to do it in the best possible manner; but I am sure you will not do so unless you are of good heart and full of comfort. Be not impatient with regard to the result of what you are doing. A little child puts his seed into the ground, and he goes in an hour or two and stirs the ground to see whether the seed is growing. That is because he is a little child; if he were a man he would know better. You go and teach your Sunday-school class, and you expect to see all the children converted there and then. It may be God will grant you your desire in a measure, but if he does not, do not be impatient-go on, go on, go on! Do not wonder if your seed does not spring up immediately; work on! and do not be disheartened. Never listen to any voice which says to you, “leave off work.” If such a voice should ever whisper in your ear, know it to be the voice of Satan, and redouble your diligence, because Satan is likely to put such a thought into your mind when you are nearest to success. Be of good comfort-your seed will come up; grace insures the harvest. If you want your seed to come up more quickly, water it again with your tears and your prayers, but never despair, success will come to it. Work on! work on! and never be unhappy about it. Recollect that if a farmer were to sigh every morning, it would not make his wheat or his barley grow the faster, and if he were to stand and weep all day because he could not see a harvest, it would not become one whit more visible for his tears. Love souls, and do all you can for them, but be not unbelieving. Exercise faith as to results. Anxiety may be good, but it is only so to a degree, beyond that it unfits us for duty, and dishonours God. Take heed of being unbelieving. “But,” say you, “what a poor worker I am.” Beloved, wherefore do you despair on that account. The trees in a man’s garden do not bring forth the less fruit because the owner is a sickly man. The fruit depends upon the trees and the season. A harvest will not be bounded by the sower’s feebleness. I saw some little children in the fields the other day, and they were putting in the seeds, but the result will be none the smaller because the children were little. If God’s work were as weak as God’s workers are, it would be weak indeed, and if the kingdom of Jesus depended upon the strength of his disciples it would soon come to nought. But the garden causeth the seeds that are sown in it to spring forth, though a consumptive hand may have dropped them into their places. My dear fainting brethren, work on, wait on, pray on, watch on. You shall have your reward ere long: “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” I may not linger longer upon this point.

I beg you in the third place to contemplate this same truth in reference to the believer’s spiritual state. Do you not sometimes fall into a wintry condition? I mean you who love the Lord; I think I need hardly ask you, for one of us may generally serve a as specimen of the rest. There are times when we feel as if we had no life at all. We hope we do love God, and our faith is fixed in Christ, but we cannot see much evidence of it. We read the Bible, and it is dull; we try to pray, and we get through a sort of exercise which we hope is prayer, but it does not refresh us; and even the prospect of going up to the house of God on the Sabbath makes us groan out “Lord send us a blessing,” but we hardly think he will; we feel so dull and dead and cold. Well, it is not to be wondered at; we are living in a world whose influences are never helpful to grace, and we bear about with us a body of sin and death, which never will aid us in the way to heaven. At such times we are like the earth in the winter. The seed is there, but it lies hidden. The sap is in the tree, but it has gone down to the root, and is not actively flowing and revealing itself. Now, in such times as these we cannot make any change in ourselves. “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,” as we have already said, could not turn winter into spring; neither can we warm ourselves into energy. We say “I will read the Bible and I will pray.” Well, we do it, but it is no better than a dead form, we are none the better for it. But there is comfort in store for us, for what we cannot do in that we are weak through the flesh God can do. How sweetly he has appeared for some of us! “Or ever I was aware,” saith the sweet singer in the Canticle, “My soul made me like the chariots of Ammi-nadib.” We could not move or stir, yet, on a sudden, we found ourselves borne onward, like the swiftly-driven chariots of Ammi-nadib: we were full of life, full of love, full of joy, full of strength, and all in a moment. Just as in a moment God sends the thaw and melts the ice, and the frozen brooks leap on their way in living rills, so will our soul leap with holy joy in the presence of God, because the Lord has come to us, and has revived us. Are you not conscious that such things have happened to you many times, my brethren and sisters? “Oh, yes,” say you. Very well, expect them again, even now ask for them, and look up to God for them. Anything is better than everlastingly poring over yourself, and your own frames and feelings. The cold of the winter will not, by being thought of, give a man any warmth. All the frosts that ever were will not create heat by our meditating upon them. Neither does any man rise into life and joy through merely meditating upon his own spiritual death and misery. Turn away from the darkness and look at the light. Spring comes from yonder sun, and so must our revival in religion, and our restored joy and peace, come from God our Father. Blessed be his name, it has come from him before; and it will come from him again. Let us wait upon him in solemn confidence that he has not left us for ever, but will return to us in mercy.

“In all the years that have been

The spring hath greened the bough;

The gladsome, healthful spring time

Keep heart, it cometh now.”

Do not suffer Satan to get an advantage over you by saying, “God has forsaken us. We shall backslide from bad to worse, we shall fall from grace, we shall perish.” You shall do no such thing; you shall be restored, you shall be revived! Yea, perhaps you came here this very morning to the intent that God might work a wonder of grace in you, that again you should abound in fruits of righteousness, and your tongue should sing to his praise; and from this day forth you shall be one of the happiest and most useful of Christians instead of being as you have been for some months past, one of the dullest and least useful of the holy brotherhood.

Now the last point shall be this: We will contemplate all this in reference to those who are newly awakened: I may have some present this morning who are saying, “Oh, that I could be saved! Oh, that I knew where I might find Christ! What would I give if I could but have a good hope through grace!” Dear brother, dear sister, those very desires of yours show that there, is some good seed sown in you. God’s grace has taught you to desire and to long. We never knew a man sincerely desire Christ, till Christ had first worked in him by the Spirit. No sinner can be beforehand with Christ. If you want Christ, he has wanted you long ago, and has already come to you. “Ah,” say you, “but I feel so dull; I cannot pray as I used to do; I do not feel my sins as I ought; in fact, I feel just nothing at all as I ought to feel it.” It is winter-time with you, dear friend, may that winter do you good. “It is very painful,” say you, “and very dangerous.” Yes, and God means to make you see what a poor thing you are, and to make you know what a wretched sinner you are, and how lost you are. Do you not know that he will strip you before he will clothe you? It is always his way to kill before he makes alive. He will not begin filming over proud flesh, he will take the knife and cut it out, and with many a cruel gash, too, as it may seem, for he means to effect a lasting cure. Therefore, you must pass through those winters.

But let me remind you now that your only hope of anything better than what you are passing through lies in Christ. You cannot save yourself. As long as you have any lingering idea that you can do so you never will be saved. You can no more save yourself than the arctic regions can turn themselves into the torrid zone. Why, say you, that could never be done, except God were to reverse the poles. Ah, and he must do as great a thing for you as that would be, or else you will always be in the cold winter you are now in; and, worse, you will perish utterly unless he appear for you. You do not deserve that he should appear for you, you deserve to be left to be what you now are, and to go from hardness to greater hardness still, till you make your own destruction sure. The power to save you lies wholly with him. What shall I say to you, then? Why, look to him, cry to him, ask him to visit you. If you want the full light of God’s love you will see it yonder, on the cross, where hangs the Son of God bleeding out his life for the sins of men. God’s love is concentrated there as the beams of the sun are focussed by a burning-glass. If you want to feel the full heat of God’s love, go to the cross; and if you will look up to Jesus dying there, to your own surprise you will feel that spring has come to your heart, and your winter is over and gone.

“Thy mercy is more than a match for my heart.

Which wonders to feel its own hardness depart;

Dissolved by thy goodness I fall to the ground,

And weep to the praise of the mercy I’ve found.”

O, what a wonderful passage that is, from darkness to light, from death to life, from damnation to salvation, from being an enemy of God to friendship with him. Yet that passage does not occupy a moment. It is effected in an instant! One look, and it is done! A glance of the eye at a dying Saviour and the sinner is saved; the garden has caused the things that were sown in it to spring forth; the earth has brought forth her bud, for God has visited the earth and the garden, and the miracle of grace is performed! I pray that these thoughts may bring comfort to many. I have laboured earnestly to encourage workers, but I would be yet much more earnest to encourage seekers. Do not let the devil tell thee, my dear hearer, that the Lord will never appear for thee. He will-he must! There was never a soul that humbled itself at his feet, and cried for mercy through his Son, that he left to perish,-not one. There has never been a year without its spring and its summer; and there is never a poor soul that has sorrowed for sin that has been left to end its life without consolation. The Lord must appear to you, he must come and bless you; and I pray he may do it for you now! And when he is gracious to you, mind that you give him the glory of it. Come and tell his people, and join with them. As long as you have breath in your body praise him, and then in heaven for ever shout his praises who has done great things for you. The Lord add his blessing for Christ’s sake. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Isaiah 61 and 62