C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington

“Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake. He then lying on Jesus’ breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He it is to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.”-John 13:23-26.

Picture the Lord and his apostles at the holy Supper. A world of interest centres here. Two figures strangely different met in this scene-met, shortly afterwards to part, and never to meet again. To look upon them, they seemed equally disciples of Jesus, and from the position which one of them occupied, as leaning on the Lord’s bosom, and the other as the treasurer of the Master’s little store, they seemed to be equally trusted and honoured followers of the great Lord. You might not have known, by mere sight, which was the better man of the two-John or Judas. Most probably you would have preferred the gentle manners of John; but I should suppose-for our Lord never chose a man to an office unless he had some qualification-you would also have admired the calm prudence of Judas, and his quiet business tact. No doubt you would have thought that he made an excellent treasurer, and you would have been glad that your Master, with so little to spare, had lighted upon so vigilant a guard and so prudent a manager. They sat at the same table, engaged in the same exercises, and looked much the same kind of men. None of us would have guessed that one of them was John the divine, and the other was Judas the devil. One of them was the seer of the Apocalypse, the other was the son of perdition.

No doubt there are strange mixtures of character in this very house to-night. There will come to this table the disciple whom Jesus loves. Him we will welcome, saying, “Come in, thou blessed of the Lord.” Alas! there may come here a son of perdition. Him we cannot chase away, for we cannot read his heart. For a time both may act and even feel alike; they may even wear well for years. Apparently they may be equally sincere; and yet the day will come when to the right, in his love and his integrity, the faithful disciple will wend his way up to his Master’s bosom for ever; and to the left, the hypocrite will go to his dreadful end, and to that hell which must receive such traitors as he. There is something very solemn about this meeting of such strangely different characters in one common act, and in the society of the same divine Lord. John is here; is Judas here? Let the question be started and passed round, “Lord, is it I?” He is the least likely to be the traitor who is nearest to his Lord’s heart. He who occupies such a place as John did is not the betrayer. Oh that we might be fired with a loving ambition to be the disciple whom Jesus loved, leaning on Jesus’ bosom! for then, though we ask the question, “Lord, is it I?” it will not linger long upon our hearts; for his love, shed abroad within them, shall answer every question of self-examination, and we shall cry, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.” Let that stand as an introduction. Glance at yourself and your brethren at the table, and say-How far shall we be like our Lord and the twelve? Will Peter, and James, and John, and Judas all live over again in the assembly of to-night for the breaking of bread?

And now our remarks will be very simple.

And the first is this-some disciples are specially loved of their Lord. We believe in the doctrine of election, but the principle of election goes to be carried farther than some suppose. There is an election in the midst of the election, and another within that. The wider circle contains the inner, and a still more select circlet forms the innermost ring of all. The Lord had a people around him who were his disciples. Within them he had twelve. Within the twelve he had three. Within the three he had one disciple whom he loved. And I suppose that what took place around his blessed person on earth takes place on a larger scale around his adorable person which is the centre of his church both militant and triumphant. Probably our Lord’s attachment to John was partly a human one; and so far as it was human, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now after the flesh know we even him no more. Any merely human affection which our Lord Jesus bore for John may have passed away. There may, also, have been such affection in Jesus toward John as there would be in any eminent Christian towards another Christly believer-in anyone whom the Lord made to be a leader of his church, towards such and such a member of that church in whom he could see most of the lovely characteristics of Christ. I cannot but think that it was so. But it strikes me that our Lord Jesus loved John in some measure more than the rest, in the entirety of his character, as Jesus Christ, the Son of God as well as the Son of man. We know that he loved all his disciples; for when my brother read the chapter just now, how like music did those words sound, “Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end”! He loved not some of his own; but all of them. He loved all his own then, and he loves all his own now. There is infinite love in the heart of Jesus towards all his people; and if there be any degrees in that love, yet the lowest degree is inconceivably great. The very least member of the divine family may say, “He loved me, and gave himself for me.” He loves us beyond all human expression, because beyond all human conception. The great heart of the eternal Father, the great heart of the eternal Son, the great heart of the ever-blessed Spirit, the great heart of the Trinity in unity, beats with love, with love to all the elect, to all the redeemed, to all the called, to all the sanctified people of God. We are quite sure of this. Yet that love has this difference about it, that it is more enjoyed by some on earth than by others.

It is clear, as a matter of fact, that the divine love is manifested to some more clearly than to others. My beloved brethren, you must know this to be the case; for there are those among us who walk with God, who enjoy the light of Jehovah’s countenance at all times, who, if depressed, have the art of rolling their burden upon the Lord, and soon are delivered from it. You know them, they are the brethren who feel like singing all the while, for Jesus is their friend, and they rejoice in him. There was one in the Old Testament who was called “a man greatly beloved,” and there are Daniels on earth even now. Christ has among women still his Maries, whom he loves. He loved Martha, too; but still there was a special place for Mary. Jesus has still his Johns, whom he peculiarly loves. He loves Peter and Nicodemus, and Nathanael, and all of them; but still there are some who know his love more than others, live in it more than others, drink into it more than others, reflect it more than others, and become more conformed to it, and saturated with it, and perfumed with it, than others are. There are first as well as last. All may be of Israel, but all the tribes are not Judah, and in Judah all the men are not Davids. Who shall deny that there are degrees in grace? Have we not among us babes, and young men, and fathers? Have we not first the blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear? It is so; and though I will not argue for degrees in glory, and, indeed, deprecate the spirit in which the doctrine of degrees in glory is often set forth; yet we are sure, for we see it with our eyes, that there are degrees of grace, and especially degrees in the enjoyment of the love of Jesus. Amongst those who do really love their Lord, and are really loved by him, one star differeth from another in the glory of that love.

Why was John made “that disciple whom Jesus loved”? Certainly it was not because he was naturally higher in rank than the others, for he was a fisherman, like the most of them; and James was certainly equal in birth, for he was his brother. Our blessed Lord did not love John because of any excess of talent; for albeit that John’s Apocalypse and his Gospel are, in some respects, the highest parts of revealed Scripture, being both the simplest and the most mysterious portions of Holy Writ; yet we should not say that John betrayed evidence of so great a mind in itself, naturally, or by education, as Paul had. He had as much talent as his Lord gave him, but there was nothing about him so special that he should for that cause have been loved; and to dismiss the thought with a word, Jesus never loves men on account of talent, and we should be unwise if we ourselves did so. These things are external to the man. Our Lord loved John, specially, for a better reason than that.

Why did our blessed Lord love John better than others? I can only reply that he exercises a sovereignty of choice, and it is not for us to ask the why and wherefore of the movements of the sacred heart. Surely, nothing should be left so free as the love of the Son of God. Let him love whom he wills; he has an unquestionable right to do so.

But if we venture reverently to look into the familiar love of Jesus, we shall not fail to see that there was about John, through grace, a most loving spirit. Men love those that are like them, and Jesus, as man, loved John because the processes of grace had developed in John the image of Jesus. John, like his Lord, had much love. He may have lacked some qualities in which Peter, and James, and others excelled, but he towered above them all in love. He was full of tenderness, and therefore his Master at once selected him to be his choicest companion and his dearest friend. You know the way, then, to the heart of Christ. Let your own heart be full of love, and you will know his love. He loves you, you know, altogether apart from anything that is in you, of his own rich and sovereign grace; but for the special manifestation of that love, for your personal enjoyment of it, to fit you for such enjoyment, you must have much love to him. You greatly need, not a great head, but a great heart. You must have, not more knowledge, but more affection; not a higher rank in society, but a higher rank in the power to love Jesus and to love your fellow-men. Less of self, and more of Jesus, and then you shall enjoy more of his love.

This being the case, that John had this loving spirit, and our Lord Jesus Christ loved him more than others, it led on to the fact that John was the recipient of confidences from Christ which others had not. I will show you that farther on; but certainly it seems to me that John was made by Jesus his executor, and he left him in his will all his earthly possessions. You will say to me, “And pray what possessions had the Master?” Well, he had one possession of which he was very fond, and he could not die until he had disposed by his last will and testament of that one earthly possession. It was his mother. He loved her, and must care for her; and there passed a little word, a kind of sign, between him and John at the last moment. Do not think that John would have understood what Jesus meant when he said: “Woman, behold thy son,” and, “Son, behold thy mother!” if there had not been a quiet talk about that matter some time before. But Jesus, I doubt not, had told John that the only earthly care he had, as man, was that while he was away slumbering in the grave he would have his mother cared for still, and so he left her in John’s charge. If you love Jesus Christ very much, he will leave something in your charge, depend upon that; and the more you love him, the more will he trust you with some loving commission which he would not trust with anybody else. I have known him leave a dear child of his, some dear old saint, for a favoured believer to look after, whom he never would have had to look after if Jesus had not said: “I love this dear old saint, and I shall commit him-I shall commit her-to the custody of such a one, because he loves me, and he will take care of this poor one for my sake.” Some of you have nobody to care for. Little know you of Christ’s trustfulness towards you: he has not trusted you with anything. Do you not grieve to think that you lack this token of his special love? As sure as ever there is any intimate love between Jesus and any soul, he trusts that soul with something to be done, to be endured, to be guarded, to be mourned over, or in some way to become a sacred trust. Thus love has occupation, proof, and expression, and this she ever longs for. I know my Master loves me, and I rejoice in his love; and sometimes, when I think of all this great church, and the College, and the Orphanage, and the many cares the whole service brings into my heart, I have said, “Have I begotten all this multitude, that I should carry all of them in my bosom, and bear their griefs, and be troubled with their troubles?” and the answer has always seemed to come to me, “Thou lovest me, and I trust thee to look after these souls, to help them, and care for them, for my sake.” It is so with you that have classes to look after, or families to care for: attend to them, for Jesus’ sake. If it be only one little one, hear Jesus say, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages.” You have a charge, each one; and if you have none, I should be afraid you may be Judas, for I cannot think you are John. Had there been the love between you and the Lord which existed between John and Jesus, Jesus would have whispered into your ear about somebody of whom he would say, “Care for him; care for him for my sake”; and you would have answered, “Lord, that I will: the more thou givest to me to do for thee, the more happy will I be, because I love thee, and because this trust proves that thou dost love me.”

There is the first head: we perceive Jesus loves some of his disciples more than others.

Now, secondly, we note that the beloved ones count this to be their greatest honour. This is evidently in the text; for John, who wrote these words, called himself “one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved”; and I think three times besides he speaks of himself as “that disciple whom Jesus loved.” He took his name from his Lord’s love, which he evidently counted to be his greatest honour. This was John’s most notable title. As a servant of the Queen, having distinguished himself in the service of Her Majesty, becomes the lord of such and such a town, and he takes the name of the place as a name of honour, so John drops his own birth-given name, as it were, and takes this title instead of it-“that disciple whom Jesus loves.” He wears it as a Knight of the Garter, or of the Golden Fleece, wears the mark of his sovereign’s esteem. He took it for his honour; and yet, beloved, there was not a grain of boasting in it, nor even an approach to glorying in the flesh. A sense of love makes us happy, but not haughty. How can I proudly boast that Jesus loves me? If you are loved of him, you will feel that you so little merit it-indeed, that you so altogether demerit it-that you will be amazed to think that he loves you, and it will never enter into your head that his love is your due. You will take the title of love, but you will give the honour back to Jesus, and often you will say,

“And when I shall die, ‘Receive me,’ I’ll cry,

For Jesus has loved me, I cannot tell why.”

You will not be able to tell why the Lord loves you so specially. This will be the wonder of eternity. But there will be no pride in the experience of being dear to the Lord, nor anything to excite self-laudation. You will feel that it would be a wicked thing to deny his matchless love, but yet you will not carnally triumph over others because of it. There would be pride in the affectation of a modesty which would doubt the love of Jesus, but there is no pride in the reception of that love, since you yourself are so evidently, so conspicuously undeserving, that no one will dream that Jesus could have loved you because there was anything good in you.

Now, had John been proud he would have altered the title thus. He would have said, “That disciple who loved Jesus.” This would have been true, though not modest. There was, as far as his heart was capable of it, a reciprocity of love between John and Jesus. If Jesus loved him, he loved Jesus; but John never called himself “That disciple who loved Jesus.” No, for he felt as if his own love was altogether unworthy of mention in the presence of the love of Jesus.

Then notice also, as if to show us that there was no pride in taking the title, that he does not say, “John was the disciple whom Jesus loved.” We gather from other facts that it was John. All the traditions and beliefs of the early church went to testify that it was John. We have not, any of us, any doubt about the fact that it was John. It has, as it were, leaked out; but John nowhere says that he was the man. All that he has said is, “That disciple whom Jesus loved”; and thus he makes the love more conspicuous than the person who received it. We know that it must have been John, for many reasons; but still he does not say so. He hides John behind the love of Jesus, which proves that John gloried in the love of Christ, but did not boast of it egotistically. Bengel tells us, that John’s name means “the love of Jehovah.” If you look at Cruden’s translation, in the list of the meanings of names in the Concordance, he puts it “the grace of God,” the grace of Jehovah. Bengel reads it “the love of the Lord”: so John just altered the name a little, and paraphrased it when he wrote, “whom Jesus loved.” It would go into shorter compass if he put it in the Hebrew, and would need but little alteration. Sometimes when men succeed to estates, it is a condition that they shall change their names: in this case the name was very little altered from “the loved one of God” into the “loved one of Jesus Christ”; and there is no alteration (is there?) in the real meaning of it. When he said, “That disciple whom Jesus loved,” it was John “writ large.” That is all. It was John a little altered under the New Testament dispensation, the old name sweetened and perfumed by bringing it near to the sweeter name of Jesus Christ his Lord. So precious has its nearness to Jesus made it, that perhaps next to the name of Jesus no name is sweeter than that of John. As Ivan, or Evan, it has a most evangelical, gospel sound. It is common in many forms throughout Christendom, and many of the noblest disciples have worn it, from John Chrysostom to John Calvin, and from John Bunyan to John Wesley, and John Newton. In any case the honour of being loved by Jesus is greater than the name John; and happy are they who can claim it!

There are some, then, whom Jesus loves more than others, and these men always count that love to be their highest honour.

A step farther. A third remark-that this special love brings such men special privileges. It brought to John the first privilege of being very near to Jesus, his Lord. At that supper he was nearest to the place which Jesus occupied. You know they lay along at the supper somewhat in this fashion-leaning upon the left arm, so as to have the right with which to help themselves to each dish. Now, John lay here, and Jesus Christ lay just there; so that, when John turned a little backward there was the bosom of Jesus for him to put his head upon; and I suppose that when John asked the question, “Lord, who is it?” he turned his head over, and said into his very ear, “Lord, who is it?” Nobody heard what he said. It was just whispered into the ear of his Lord when his head was in that sacred bosom; and the answer was not heard by anybody except John. But his position of being nearest was brought about by his being best loved. He was nearest in fellowship because dearest in love. Now, beloved, if you are best loved by Christ, you live nearest to him. I am sure of it. If you love him best, and he loves you best, you will be more in prayer than others; you will spend more time alone with Jesus than other Christians do. You will abound in petition and praise. You will read his Word with greater diligence; you will drink it in with greater delight. You will live for him, too, with greater consecration. Your whole time will be spent in his company. When you are at your work in the house, or the field, or the shop, you will still be with him. If you are better loved than others, your daily song will be-

“The day is dark, the night is long,

Unblest with thoughts of thee,

And dull to me the sweetest song,

Unless its theme thou be.”

“He feedeth among the lilies,” and keeps near the pure in heart. Our Well-beloved’s delights are with those who delight in him. You will be close to Jesus if you are dear to him. The two things go together. If you are living far away in the cold regions of broken fellowship, then I am sure you have but very little conscious enjoyment of the love of Jesus Christ your Lord. The dearest must be the nearest. That is the first privilege.

The second was the privilege of using and receiving tokens of endearment. He leaned his head on Jesus’ bosom, looking up into his face; and Jesus looked down on him. There was mutual endearment, for Jesus loved him, and he loved Jesus; and that night, when the blessed Master was in trouble, he wanted his friend with him, and felt a need for John, though he could not help him much. Jesus felt a need of John’s society and sympathy, and it made Christ’s bosom all the easier to have John’s beloved head in it. As for John, it must have been a heaven below to be thus in the bosom of his Lord. He mentions it three times, you see; twice in this passage, and once in the last chapter of his gospel, where there was no necessity for mentioning it. He had such a recollection of his head having once been laid on his Lord’s breast, that he must put it in when he is speaking about Peter and himself. He says, “The disciple which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?” He must needs repeat the charming fact, for it was such a delight to him. O beloved, we cannot now touch the bosom of Jesus after the flesh, for he is gone up on high; but there are still most sweet endearments of spirit between the Lord Jesus and his loving disciples. I must not tell abroad the secrets of love, for these things are for those that know them, and not for all comers. Choice passages between true hearts are not to be published in the street, lest they become the theme of ridicule. Pearls are not to be cast before swine. But believe me, at this moment we have, or at least we can have, such intimate enjoyment of the love of Jesus, that even if he were here, and we could lean our heads upon his bosom, the endearment could not be more certain, more sweet, or more ravishing to our delighted souls. In very truth we have fellowship with Jesus, and that fellowship is no dream or fancy. We speak no fiction, neither do we retail at secondhand what others have experienced, but we speak of things which we have personally enjoyed; and we know that there is an intimate communion which is one of the private privileges of those whom Jesus loves much, for it has been our privilege. I hope very many of you know this choice blessing of living in the immediate enjoyment of your Saviour’s love. May you never lose it!

Then is there a third boon, not only of nearness and endearment, but of confidence towards the Lord; for it was a bold thing, surely, for John to lean his head on Christ’s bosom. Our Lord did not say, “Nay, John; nay. I am thy Master, and thy Lord. Dost thou do this to me as if I were thine equal?” No. The meaning of that blessed text, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out,” runs in other directions besides that which we generally think of. If you come to Jesus in the most intense manner, he will not repulse you. If your head shall come into his bosom, he will not cast your head out. If you can get your very heart into his heart and come closer to him than even John dared to do-if you carry that coming beyond all previous comings, yet Jesus neither will nor can resent the nearest approaches of any one of his believing people. We lose a great deal of Christ’s loving fellowship because we are so formal and distant towards him. We seem to think that he came among men to show them their distance from God, and not to be as a brother to them, to reveal God to them. Jesus seeks to reach our hearts, he stoops to our littleness; let us pluck up courage to draw near to him. Well does our hymn put it-

“Let us be simple with him, then,

Not backward, stiff, or cold;

As though our Bethlehem could be

What Sinai was of old.”

Lean on him. Lean on the bosom of the Christ of God, who loveth us, and hath given himself for us. Make a confidant as well as a confidence of your Lord. Put all the weight of your care, all the weight of your whole self and all that concerns you upon him, and then recline with delight upon his bosom. There was a gracious confidence given to John, which he rightly used towards his Lord.

Surely there was a great liberty given to him. Some would have said he took a liberty in thus leaning where no head of king or emperor might aspire to rise. He was the most honoured of all human beings; but surely he took great liberties. No, he did not, for the Lord himself gave him access with boldness. Great love has privileges which make her boldest advances no intrusion. Love has the key of all the rooms of the Father’s house. Love has the range of Paradise. Love may read the very heart of God. Love may come where she wills, and go unchallenged. John said to our Saviour, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus looked down at him and said, as if he did not want the others to know at all, “He it is to whom I shall give a sop.” He had just to watch a little while. I do not know but it is not improbable, that Judas was next at the table-John here, then Jesus, and then Judas. Very likely Judas was pretty close to the Lord; for if a man has your purse you want him near you, so as to tell him what you wish to have done with the money. So, when Jesus just turned over and gave a sop to Judas, John knew the meaning of the act. Judas had had his conscience disturbed, I should think, by the utterance of the Saviour, when he said, “He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me,” and by the question of each of the others, “Lord, is it I?” Judas himself asked that question for a time; but he grew calm again, and became reassured, and thought he should not be found out, until the Lord dipped a piece of meat, according to the Oriental custom, in the sauce of the dish, and passed it to him. Even then Judas possibly thought, “This is an act of great friendship. He evidently has the utmost confidence in me, and has not found me out.” Little did he know that the sop was the token of the discovered traitor. Then Judas said, “Lord, is it I?” thinking he should get a pleasant answer, but Jesus answered that it was even he, and added, “What thou doest, do quickly.” There that matter ended. But John was thus the recipient of friendly confidence on the part of Christ: he told to Jesus his heart, and Jesus told him his heart. He had liberty to go to Christ. Ah, brethren! do you never feel in prayer as if you were tied up and could not pray? The best of saints will be bound about some things. People come and ask you to pray for this, and pray for that; but you cannot so pray unless you have liberty from the throne. If God gives the prayer of faith, you can pray it; but you cannot pray that prayer at your own will. He that can most often pray the prayer of faith, he that can see farthest into Christ’s mysteries, he that can read the riddles of this divine Samson, is the man whose heart loves Jesus best, and whose head lies most in the bosom of his Lord. Be you sure of this, that if you love much, you shall know the secret of the Lord, for it is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant.

Now a step farther, and a very little more, and we have done. This creates special knowledge. I merely give it as a head to help your memories, for I have already dwelt upon it as a matter of fact. The special privileges of love lead on to a special knowledge of Christ. I do not think that any other evangelist notices Christ’s emotion at the supper in the matter of his spirit as John has done. He writes, “When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit,” and so on. John was so close to the Lord, with his head on his breast, that he could tell, by the heaving of his bosom, that he was troubled. The mind of God is not so revealed to any man now that he can set up to foretell the future like a prophet; but, mark you, the choice ones amongst the saints have intimations of the mind of God about many things. Those who live at court can often foresee the king’s movements when others cannot. It is my firm conviction that favoured believers have tokens, warnings, and hints from above. Did not the Lord say, “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” Even the choicest spirits may not understand the Lord’s meaning all at once; but if any man can read anything of the future, it is he that puts his head where all eyes grow clear, and all hearts become pure, even upon the breast of Jesus. Oh, to know Christ! The day will come when the saints of God who are great classics, mathematicians, or astronomers-and there have been godly men skilled in all the sciences-the day, I say, shall come when these will count all they know of science to be of little worth compared with the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus their Lord. Brethren, we value knowledge, culture, science; but when we put them at their highest market price, what are they as compared with the knowledge of Jesus? This is my one ambition-that I may know him, and may comprehend with all saints what are the heights, and depths, and lengths, and breadths, and know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. If you love your Lord, you shall know of his doctrine. If you live near him, you shall understand his feelings. If his secret be with you, you shall know what prophets and kings desired to know, and what angels desire to look into. The Lord bless you, and bring each one of you who are his people into this happy condition.

I have done, when I notice two things. The first is this-that the favoured position which John occupied did not screen him from the necessity of asking the question, “Lord, is it I?” There really was no suspicion of him, nor any reason for such suspicion; but his heart was in a right state, and, therefore, he felt it necessary to say, “Lord, is it I?” as well as any of the rest. And I make this remark because the very persons who do not say, “Lord, is it I?” are those who ought to say it. If you are enjoying more of God’s love to-night than ever you did in your life, yet do not profess to have climbed above the need of self-examination. When the question comes, “Art thou really one of his?” do not chase it away, as if it were an impertinence. Entertain the enquiry till you can satisfy it with a sufficient answer. Some professors can afford to sneer at holy anxiety. May I never be of their number! I have heard them ridicule the question-

“Do I love the Lord or no?

Am I his, or am I not?”

Now, I do not hesitate to say that every man who loves the Lord has had to ask that question; and has had to ask it all the more because the truth and fervency of his love have made him jealous of himself. He has such an overwhelming sense of what his love ought to be, and he has such a consciousness of shortcoming, that he is quite sure to say, “Do I love the Lord?” It is not your bold talker that is your true lover after all. There is a confidence which is fatal.

“He who never doubted of his state,

He may-perhaps he may too late.”

If thou sayest, “I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing,” whilst thou art naked, and poor, and miserable, it will be a sad deception, and the awakening out of it will be sadder still.

But if thou sayest, “Oh that I loved my Redeemer more! Oh that I served him better! But I do love him. My heart is his, and he does love me,” then thou hast answered the question of, “Lord, is it I?” and thou mayest go thy way contented.

The other remark, with which I finish, is this: that John’s nearness to Christ did not authorize him to make answer to his fellow disciples, nor to judge any one of them. Time was when John might have sat in judgment over them. Did he not desire to sit upon a throne judging the twelve tribes of Israel with his brother James? But now that he has his head in his Lord’s bosom, he is not anxious to judge, but far otherwise. His brethren keep asking, “Lord, is it I?” Peter makes signs to him. Fishermen have ways of their own of talking to one another. Peter seems to say, without the use of words, “Pray ask the Master.” John does not presume to make a guess as to the traitor’s name, but he softly says, “Lord, who is it?” He asked that question of his Lord; but he did not himself pitch upon Judas. No, he might, perhaps, have laid his suspicions upon someone else who would have been innocent. It was wise to refer the matter to the Lord. Some say that they live very near to Jesus. It is an evil sign when men speak of their own attainments. These are the people who, in the next breath, begin to condemn others. But this is not after the manner of the beloved John. Some professors affirm that they are going to have a particularly fine place in the glory, all by themselves. I do not quite understand their theory, but I am sure I do not grudge any of my Master’s servants any special honour they may desire. As far as I understand them, there is to be a separate place in the kingdom for them, and we poor, ordinary Christians are to be saved; but we must take a lower room. So let it be. We will rejoice in the promotion of our brethren. As for myself, if it should ever come to pass that I should have the privilege of living in some first avenue in heaven among the aristocracy of the skies, I think I should prefer another quarter. I have kept company on earth with such a poor lot of brethren, and I have learned to love them so well, that I would rather abide with them in their inferior heaven than rise with the cream of the cream into the upper places. I like to be with God’s people of the poorer class, and of the more struggling and afflicted sort. I like to be with God’s people who wrestle hard with sins, and doubts, and fears. If I get spoken to by my very superior brethren, I find that I have very little pleasant fellowship with them, for I know nothing about their wonderful experience of freedom from conflict, and complete deliverance from every evil tendency. I have never won an inch of the way to heaven without fighting for it. I have never lived a day but I have had to sorrow over my imperfections. I sometimes get near to God, but at that time I weep most about my faults and failings. Although I have thus spoken after the manner of men, I do not believe in these superior beings, nor in their superior heaven: but even if I did, I would sooner follow with the flock than run ahead with the greyhounds. These brethren judge us, and condemn us. They say that we do not understand “the mystery of the kingdom,” or something or other. We know Jesus Christ, however-both theirs and ours. We will not deny their piety and grace, but bless God that they have so much of them. We hope, however, to get to heaven the same as they, and into the glory the same as they; and we will be glad if so the Lord will enable us. Do you find the spirit of self-exaltation, and of condemning others, coming over you at times? Conquer it at once by the Holy Spirit’s power. Let us cease to judge where we are forbidden to do so. Let us contend earnestly for the truth; but as to the hearts of men, let us leave these to Jesus.

I close by saying-you remember what Jesus said to Peter. Peter was always a little too fast, and he therefore ventured to peer into things which did not concern him, and so he said to Jesus, as he looked at John, “Lord, and what shall this man do?” He did not think badly of brother John: I should have been ashamed of Peter if he had done so. But still he said, “What shall this man do?” Our blessed Lord replied to him, “What is that to thee? Follow thou me.” So, when you feel inclined, because you are growing in grace and becoming somebody, to say, “Lord, and what shall this poor member do? And what shall this imperfect brother be? What shall that poor, blundering new convert do?”-remember the words of Jesus: “What is that to thee? Follow thou me.” Mind your Master, and mind yourself, and let your brethren stand or fall to their own Lord, as you must. Now, come and lay your head in your Lord’s bosom, and never mind Peter. May God bless you, for Christ’s sake!

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-John 13:1-35.

Hymns from “Our own Hymn Book”-778, 766, 784.

CONCERNING PRAYER

A Sermon

Intended for Reading on Lord’s-day, November 25th, 1888,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Thursday Evening, August 23rd, 1888.

“Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer; and attend to the voice of my supplications. In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee: for thou wilt answer me.”-Psalm 86:6, 7.

When I was reading this eighty-sixth Psalm, I reminded you that the title of it is “A prayer of David.” It is rightly named “A prayer,” for it is very especially filled with supplication. There are four other psalms each called by the name Tephillah, or “prayer,” but this deserves to be distinguished from the rest and known as “the prayer of David,” even as the ninetieth Psalm is known as “the prayer of Moses.” It savours of David. The man of sincerity, of ardour, of trials, of faults, and of great heart, pleads, sobs, and trusts through all the verses of this psalm.

Note one thing about this remarkable prayer of David-it is almost entirely devoid of poetry. Men use grand, studied, rapturous, and poetical expressions in their praises; and they do well. Let God be praised with the noblest thoughts, as well as the most charming music. But when a man comes to prayer, and that prayer is out of the depths of sorrow, he has no time or thought for poetry. He goes straight at the matter in hand, and pleads with God in downright plainness of speech. You shall notice that in happy prayers, in times of joy, men use similes, and metaphors, and tropes, and symbols, and the like; but when it comes to wrestling with God in times of agony, there is no beauty of speech: parable and poesy are laid aside. The man’s language is in sackcloth and ashes; or, better still, it stands stripped for wrestling, every superfluous word being laid aside. Then the cry is heard, “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.” That is not poetry, but it is a great deal better. Throughout this psalm David is a plain-dealer, speaking with God in downright earnest. He has got his grip of the covenant angel, and he will not let him go. Men cannot study where to put their feet prettily when they are wrestling: they have to do the best they can to hold their ground, and fling their antagonist. In such a prayer-psalm as this, there is no studying of language: it is the pouring out of the heart as the heart boils over, the utterance of the desires as they bubble up from the soul’s deeps, with an entire carelessness as to the fashion of the expression.

This ought to be a hint to you when you pray. Do not study how to arrange your words when you come before the Lord. Leave the expression to the occasion: it shall be given you in the selfsame hour what you shall speak. When your heart is like a boiling geyser, let it steam aloft in pillars of prayer. The overflowing of the soul is the best praying in the world. Prayers that are indistinct, inharmonious, broken, made up of sighs and cries, and damped with tears-these are the prayers which win with heaven. Prayers that you cannot pray, pleadings too big for utterance, prayers that stagger the words, and break their backs, and crush them down-these are the very best prayers that God ever hears.

So, you say, dear friends, that you cannot pray; you are so troubled that you cannot speak. Well, then, copy the beggars in the street. They must not beg, for that is contrary to law. But a man sits down, and writes on a spade, “I am starving,” and he looks as white as a sheet. What a picture of misery! He is not begging; not he; but the money comes dropping into the old hat. So, when you cannot pray, I believe that your silent display of utter inability is the best sort of praying. The blessing comes when we sit down before the Lord, and in sheer desperation expose our spiritual need.

I am not going to dwell longer upon that matter, but will simply show you what was the nature of David’s prayer. There are two things which David must have when he prays-two great things after which he strains with his whole heart. The first is personal intercourse with God. Read that sixth verse: “Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer; and attend to the voice of my supplications.” And, in the second place, he must have personal answers from God. He is not content to pray without prayer having some practical result. So, the seventh verse is, “In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee: for thou wilt answer me.”

First, then, David in his prayer sought, beyond all things, to have personal intercourse with God. To my mind that is just the distinction between prayer before conversion, and prayer after it. I often bring that out when I am seeing enquirers who have been religiously brought up. This is the sort of dialogue we hold: “You used to pray, did you?” “Yes, sir; I could not have gone to sleep if I had not said my prayers.” “Was there any difference between that kind of praying and what you now practise?” The reply usually is, “Well, sir, I do not now call the first praying at all. I used to say some good words that I had been taught, but I did not say them to anybody; now I speak to God, and I have the feeling that he is hearing what I say, and that he is present with me in my room.” It is the realization of that second person as really present, the consciousness of the divine presence, which makes prayer real. What can be the good of going through a form of prayer? Can there be any charm in a set of sentences? If you are not speaking to God, what are you doing? I should say that a prayer would do as much good repeated backwards as forwards, if it is not spoken to God. We have heard of instances of grown up persons keeping on saying the prayer which their mother taught them, and asking that God would bless their father and mother, after they had been dead twenty years. All sorts of absurdities, I do not doubt, have come from the long-continued and thoughtless repetition of mere words. I am not now speaking against the use of a form of prayer, if you feel that you can pray with it; but the point is, that you must be speaking to God, and you must have personal intercourse with the invisible One, or else there is nothing whatever in your prayer, whether it be composed on the spot, or repeated from memory.

Note well, that David, while he thus sought to have dealings with God, to come to close grips with the Lord in the act of prayer, was not presumptuously bold. He perceives the condescension of such fellowship on God’s part. This may be seen in the psalm. If you have the psalm open before you, kindly begin with the first line: “Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me.” As if he said, “Thou art so high that, unless thou shalt stoop, and stoop very low, thou canst not commune with me. But, Lord, do thus stoop. Bow down thine ear. From thy lofty throne, higher than an angel’s wing can reach, stoop thou down and listen to me-poor, feeble me.” This is what we must have in order to true prayer. Our prayer must climb to that great ear which hears the symphonies of the perfected, and the hallelujahs of cherubim and seraphim. Is there not something very wonderful about this, that we, who are both insignificant and unworthy, should be able to speak to him who made the stars, and upholds all things by the word of his power? Yet this is the essence of prayer: to rise, in human feebleness to talk with divine omnipotence; in nothingness to deal with all-sufficiency. You cannot venture upon this without the Mediator, Christ; but with the Mediator, what a wonderful fellowship a worm of the dust is permitted to enjoy with the infinite God! What condescension there is in a sinner communing with the thrice-holy Jehovah! Seek after this intercourse; nothing can excel it.

As you further read in this psalm, you will notice that David, in order to obtain this high privilege, pleads his need of it. He cries, “I am poor and needy”: as much as to say, “Lord, do come to me, do let me have personal intercourse with thee, for nothing else will serve my turn. I am so poor that thou alone canst enrich me; I am so feeble, that thou alone canst sustain me. Thou hast made me: Lord, forsake not the work of thine own hands! I, thy child, am full of wants, which thou only canst supply. Oh, deal with me in great compassion!” Virtually his plea is,

“Do not turn away thy face,

Mine’s an urgent, pressing case.”

Now, is not this very encouraging, that your claim upon God should lie in your need? You cannot say to God, “Lord, look at me, and commune with me, for I am somebody”; but you may say, “Lord, commune with me, for I am nobody.” You may not cry, “Lord, help me, for I can do much”; but you may cry, “Lord help me, for I can do nothing.” Your need is your most prevalent plea with God. When you are desiring to pray such a prayer as consists in intercourse with God, it is great condescension on his part to draw near to you; but he will condescend to your needs, and come near, because your misery needs his presence. God will not condescend to your pride, but he will bow his ear to your grief. If you set up a claim to merit, he will turn his back upon you; but if you come to him with a claim of necessity, which is merely a beggar’s claim when he asks for alms-an appeal to the charity of God’s sovereign love, then he will turn about and hear your prayer. Come, my heart, art thou not encouraged to come near to God, seeing he hath respect to thy low estate, and pitieth thy sorrows?

Read on, and you will find that David, in order to come into intercourse with God, next pleads his personal consecration: “Preserve my soul; for I am holy.” By this I understand him to mean, that he belongs to God; that he is consecrated and dedicated to the divine service. Should not the priest handle the golden bowl? Should not the priest enter into the holy place? And should not God therefore come and deal with the man who is dedicated to his use, and set apart to his service? My dear brothers and sisters, can you say to-night that you live for God? Do you recognize that you are not your own, but bought with a price? Well, there dwells an argument in that fact-a reason why the Lord God should come and take hold of you, and link himself with you. You are the vessels of his sanctuary, you are the instruments of his divine service, you are consecrated to his honour, and you may expect him therefore to touch you with his hand, to employ you in his work, and to identify himself with you in your circumstances and necessities.

Moreover, David, anxious to use every argument, pleads his trust: “Save thy servant that trusteth in thee.” This is a conquering plea: “Lord, my sole reliance is on thee; come to me, then, and justify the confidence which thou thyself hast inspired.” “Without faith it is impossible to please God;” but when God has given us faith, then we may be quite sure that we do please him; and if we please him, then, like Enoch, who pleased him, we shall walk with him. You may expect, in prayer, to find God drawing near to you, if in very deed you are holding to him as the one ground of your confidence. Brethren, are you sure that you do trust in God? You answer, “Yes.” Ah! then let me say to you, that you shall have a reward, and that reward will probably be that you will be taught to trust him more. That you may rise to a larger faith you will probably suffer greater troubles than you have hitherto known. The reward of service is more service. A good soldier, who has fought through many battles, and won many victories, shall be sent out to the wars next time his master’s forces want a captain. You, having already trusted, shall have your faith further tried, in order that you may glorify God, and so arrive at a greater faith. Do you not see that faith largely lies in the realization that God is, and that God is near? And if you so realize God when you bow the knee in prayer, you may expect to have sweet intercourse with him. Many years ago I trusted God about many things, and I found him true; but of late I have had to take a step in advance, and trust God wholly and alone, in the teeth of all appearances. I have been called almost literally to stand alone in contending against error; and in this I have distinctly taken a nearer place in prayer with the God whom I serve in my spirit. It is very well to rest on God when you have other props, but it is best of all to rest on him when every prop is knocked away. To hang on the bare arm of God is glorious dependence; and he that has once done it, cannot think of ever going back to trust in men again. “No,” says he, “I tried you once, and you failed me. I had you with me, and I trusted God in you; but now that you have turned from me, I will trust God alone without you, even though you now come back to the man you deserted.” Dependence upon the Lord creates a glorious independence of man. Verily, it is true, “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm”; but verily, verily, it is true, “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.” Part of that blessedness will be found in the communion which such a man enjoys with God whenever he approaches him in prayer.

Still, following the same line, notice that David pleads for God’s presence because he is God’s servant. He says here, “Save thy servant.” A servant has liberty to enquire as to his master’s will, and he is justified in asking to see his Lord. If he is employed upon his master’s business, he says, “I want orders. I wish to tell my master my difficulties, and to seek from him a supply for those necessities which his service will bring upon me.” You feel that he has a good and sufficient plea when he urges this request. Even so, if you can honestly feel that you are spending your strength in the Lord’s service, you, also, may lawfully expect that, when you draw near to him in prayer, your Master will speak to you as his servant, and he that has sent you will commune with you.

David urges yet another reason why just now he should see God, namely, that he is always in prayer: “I cry unto thee daily.” The Lord will hear your prayer, my dear hearer, to-night, if you never prayed before: I am quite sure of it. But I am still more sure that, if you have been long in the habit of prayer, it is not possible that the Father of mercies should cease to hear you. Oh, the sweet delights of constancy in prayer! The habit of prayer is charming, but the spirit of prayer is heavenly. Be always praying. Is that possible? Some have realized it, till the whole of the engagements of the day have been ablaze with prayer. God bring us each one into that condition! Then we need not barely hope that he will have intercourse with us, for we shall be already enjoying his presence and his fellowship. Blessed are we when prayer surrounds us like an atmosphere. Then we are living in the presence of God; we are continually conversing with him. May such be our lot! May we climb to the top of the mount of communion, and may we never come down from it!

David also tells the Lord that, when he could not attain to the nearness he desired, yet he struggled after it, and strained after it. Is not this the meaning of the expression, “Rejoice the soul of thy servant, for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul”? As much as if he said, “Lord, when I cannot climb the hill of fellowship, I labour to do so. If I cannot enter into thy presence, I groan until I do so.” We ought either to be rejoicing in the Lord, or pining after him! Ask God to make you miserable, unless his conscious presence makes you happy. Unless his love is shed abroad in your heart, to be the beginning of heaven, may you mourn his absence as a very hell to your soul! Often I pray-

“Oh, make my heart rejoice, or ache;

Resolve each doubt for me:

Lord, if it be not broken, break;

And heal it if it be.”

We want one of the two-either to commune with God, or else to sigh and cry till we do so. We must hunger and thirst after righteousness if we are not filled. To be in a state of content without fellowship with God would be a terrible condition indeed.

Now, when a man’s daily cries and inward strivings are after God, he may certainly expect that God in prayer will have intercourse with him. But again, I say, does it not seem extraordinary that you and I, insignificant persons, who can have no claim upon the great Maker of the universe, should yet be permitted to come to his courts-ay, even to come to himself through Christ Jesus, and speak with him as a man speaketh with his friend? Do not think that Abraham, when he stood before the Lord, and pleaded with him, as one man does with another, was singularly favoured above the rest of the elect family. It was a high favour, I cannot tell you how great; but such honour have all the saints. There are occasions with all his people when the Lord brings them very near, and speaks with them, and they with him, when his presence is to them as real as the all-pervading air, and they are as much rejoiced in it as in the presence of father, or wife, or child, or friend.

Still David, conscious of the great privilege which he sought, was not content without pleading the master argument of all: he pleads the great goodness of the Lord. Read it in verse five: “For thou, Lord, art good.” As much as to say-If thou wert not good thou wouldst never listen to me. I am, as it were, a noxious insect which a man might far sooner crush than speak with; and yet thou art so good, my God, that instead of setting thy foot on me, thou dost lift me up and talk with me. Who thinks of an angel talking with an emmet? That would be nothing; here is Jehovah speaking with a creature which is crushed before the moth. “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant.” He lets an unworthy creature tell out its heart to him, and he bows his ear, and listens as earnestly as if there were no other voice in heaven to command his thought. He gives his whole attention to the feeble cry of an unworthy one. Such an amazing fact could not happen unless it were written, “For thou, Lord, art good.”

Ah! but besides that, there is sin in us. I can understand the great God forgetting our littleness, and bowing down to it; but for the holy God not to be held off by our sinfulness, this is a greater wonder still. But then the verse says he is “ready to forgive.” Ah, yes! when some of us think of what we were, we must be drowned in amazement that ever we should be permitted to commune with God. Yonder is a man who could once swear at an awful rate, and now God listens to his voice in prayer. Another was a Sabbath-breaker, a neglecter of the Word of God, a despiser of every holy and pure thing, and yet he is now permitted to come into intimate friendship with the Most High. It is very marvellous, is it not?

Remember, none ever washed Christ’s feet except a woman that was a sinner. Our Lord selects those that have been the greatest sinners to come into the nearest communion with himself. It may be he has raised up some sister here, who was once a tempter of others, to become a mighty intercessor in prayer for the salvation of others. It may be that some brother here, who once was-ah! but he is ashamed to remember what he was-has now become mighty in supplication; and, like Elijah, can open or shut the windows of heaven. Oh, the strangeness of Almighty grace! Let God’s name be magnified for ever and ever.

Thus I have enlarged on the first thought that, in prayer, it is vital to us really to speak with God. Before I leave it, I want to pass a question round the place. Do you, my dear hearers, all pray so as to speak with God? If not, what does it mean? If you merely repeat good words, what is the use of it? You might as well stand on a hill and talk to the moon, as kneel down and hurry through the Lord’s Prayer, and then think that you have prayed. I tell you, you might better do the first than the second, for you would not insult God in that case; whereas you do insult him in every one of those holy words which you use without thought, heart, and faith. Think how you would like your own child every morning to come to you, and repeat a certain set of words without meaning anything thereby. You would say, “There, child, there, I have heard that often enough. Come to me no more with your empty noise.” You would not care for vain repetitions. But when your boy or girl says, “Father, I need such a thing, please give it me,” you hearken to the child’s words. It may be that you have not enough of this world’s goods to be very anxious that your children should come with large petitions; but if you were sufficiently rich, you would say, “That is right, dear child. Is there anything else you want? Tell me what it is. I will right gladly give you all things that are needful for you.” You would wish your child’s request to be an intelligent one, and then you would gladly attend to it. If your prayer does not come from your heart it will not go to God’s heart; and if it does not bring you near to God, so that you are speaking to him, you have simply wasted your breath. You have done worse than nothing, for in all likelihood you have daubed your conscience over with the notion that you have prayed, and so you have even done yourself serious harm by a flattering deceit. Oh, that God would save you from being so foolish!

And now I come to the second point, and I pray God to give me strength to speak upon it, and give you grace to hear it. Not at any great length, but with much earnestness, I have to remind you that David, in his prayer, desired personal answers from God. When we pray, we expect God to hear us, even as David says, “In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee: for thou wilt answer me.”

I must not speak for all Christians in this matter; but I may speak for myself and for many dear brethren in the faith, and I must boldly say that we expect the Lord to hear our prayers; nay, we are sure that he does so. We hear our fellow-Christians say, when we tell them of instances in which God has heard our prayers, “How very extraordinary!” And we look at them, and say, “Extraordinary!” Has it become an extraordinary thing for God to be true to his own promise? I like better the remark of the good old lady, who, when her prayer was answered, was asked, “Does it not surprise you?” She said, “No, it does not surprise me; it is just like him.” If any one of you had a promise from a friend that, upon your sending in a note, he would give you such and such a thing; if you sent the request, and he fulfilled his promise, would you say, “I am greatly surprised at his action”? No, no: you believe that your friend means what he says, and you look for him to keep his word. O child of God, deal with God on those terms. The wonder was, that he should make the promise at all; but when he has made the promise, it is not wonderful that he should keep it. He expects you to ask, and he waits to give.

A promise is like a cheque. If I have a cheque, what do I do with it? Suppose I carried it about in my pocket, and said, “I do not see the use of this bit of paper, I cannot buy anything with it,” a person would say, “Have you been to the bank with it?” “No, I did not think of that.” “But it is payable to your order. Have you written your name on the back of it?” “No, I have not done that.” “And yet you are blaming the person who gave you the cheque? The whole blame lies with yourself. Put your name at the back of the cheque, go with it to the bank, and you will get what is promised to you.” A prayer should be the presentation of God’s promise endorsed by your personal faith. I hear of people praying for an hour together. I am very pleased that they can; but it is seldom that I can do so, and I see no need for it. It is like a person going into a bank with a cheque, and stopping an hour. The clerks would wonder. The common-sense way is to go to the counter and show your cheque, and take your money, and go about your business. There is a style of prayer which is of this fine practical character. You so believe in God that you present the promise, obtain the blessing, and go about your Master’s business. Sometimes a flood of words only means excusing unbelief. The prayers of the Bible are nearly all short ones: they are short and strong. The exceptions are found in places of peculiar difficulty, like that of Jacob, when he cried,

“With thee all night I mean to stay,

And wrestle till the break of day.”

As a general rule, faith presents its prayer, gets its answer, and goes on its way rejoicing.

We expect our God to answer our prayer all the more surely when we are in trouble. David so expected: “In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee: for thou wilt answer me.” Trouble is sent to make us pray. When we pray, the prayer becomes the solace of our trouble; and when the prayer is heard, it becomes the salvation out of our trouble. Many of you would be out of trouble quickly if you prayed. “Sir, I have been doing my best.” And what is your best? A better thing than your best is to wait upon the Lord. Often and often trial has to rap our fingers to make us let go our harmful confidences, and turn to the Lord. With our vain-confidence we are like a madman with a razor: the more we grasp it, the more it cuts us. Drop the deadly self-trust; trust in God, and look to him, and your deliverance will speedily come to you. If you should have no answer at any other time, you will assuredly be heard in the time of trouble if you trust in the Lord.

Now, if we expect God to answer us, we do so on very good grounds. There are certain natural reasons. I was turning over in my mind the question, “Why do I pray? Why have I any reason to believe that God hears me?” And I thought to myself, “Well, on natural grounds I have a right to believe that God will hear prayer, or otherwise why is prayer commanded?” The Scripture is full of prayer. It is an institution of the old covenant, as well as of the new, and yet it is a piece of folly if God does not hear it.

“Oh,” says somebody, “but it does you good to pray, even though there may be no such a thing as God’s hearing prayer.” It might do an idiot good to pray when he knew there was no hearing of prayer on God’s part; but not being an idiot myself, I could not perform such a stupid exercise. I would as soon sit on a five-barred gate, and whistle to the hills as offer prayer if I did not hope to be heard. If there is no God that hears prayer, I shall not pray, nor will any other rational being. Show prayer to be unheard of God, and you have shown it to be a folly. Show prayer to be a folly, and who will pursue it? Does God invite us to pray? Does he command us to pray? Are there many injunctions of this kind-“Men ought always to pray, and not to faint”; “Pray without ceasing”; and so on? Then prayer must be heard of God. How would it be with you if you said to a number of poor people, “Come round to my gate to-morrow, and I will relieve your distresses”? Would you not intend to relieve their distresses when you said so? I cannot imagine that you would be so diabolical as to keep on saying, “Come to my house. Whenever you are hungry, come to my table. Whenever you need clothes, come to my door, and ask”; all the while saying to yourself, “But I do not intend to give you anything. You may come, and ring the bell as long as you like; it will be fine exercise for you, but I shall take no notice of your appeals.” It would be a most shocking and disgraceful mockery of misery. God will not serve us in that fashion. The very institution of prayer gives us the assurance that God intends to hear and to answer.

Observe, again, that prayer has been universal among all the saints. There have been saints of different moulds and temperaments, but they have all prayed. Some of them have been, like Heman and Asaph, masters of song, and they have prayed; others could not sing, but they have all prayed. To-day you may meet with all sorts of Christians, holding many kinds of doctrines, but they all pray; and what is most curious, they all pray alike, too. You can scarcely detect a difference when they pray.

“The saints in prayer appear as one,

In word, and deed, and mind.”

A man may preach doctrine contrary to the grace of God; but get him on his knees, and he prays to God for grace, as heartily as John Calvin himself. We are one at the mercy-seat. Whatever doctrinal views we may hold, when we plead with the living God, in the power of the Holy Ghost, we are poured into one mould. How is this? If, all the ages through, saints have prayed, have they all been fools? Have they all exercised themselves in a way that was utterly useless and absurd? Do not believe it!

Note again, that the more godly and holy a man is, the more he prays. You never heard yet that a man began to backslide, or that a sober man became a drunkard, through praying too much. Did you ever hear of a person becoming unkind to his wife, ungenerous to the poor, negligent of public worship, or guilty of grievous sin, through being too much in prayer? No; the case is the reverse. As the man loves God more, and becomes more like Christ, he takes greater delight in prayer. That cannot be an idle and useless exercise which the best of men have followed under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. If there be a possibility of error, we err in the best of company: for yonder comes the Lord Jesus himself from his lonely haunt, with the burrs of the heather from the mountain-side sticking to his garments. He has spent all night in agonizing prayer. He will not open his mouth to preach to the multitude till first of all he has received a new anointing from his Father’s hand in secret fellowship with heaven. Our Master and his best disciples have abounded in prayer.

Well, dear friends, these are natural reasons; and there are a great many more, if you will think them out.

But, if you turn to Scriptural reasons, why was there a mercy-seat if there is nothing in prayer? Why does the throne of grace still remain as a permanent institution, of which Paul says, “Let us come boldly to the throne of grace,” unless there is a reality in it? Tell me, why is Christ the way to the mercy-seat? Why is he himself the great Intercessor and Mediator, if there is nothing in prayer? The Holy Ghost helpeth our infirmities in prayer; surely there must be something effectual where he lends his aid. What! is he, after all, helping us to do a thing which produces no result?-helping us to present petitions which will never reach the ear of God? Tell that to the philosophers; we are not so credulous.

For, once more, we know that God hears prayer, because we have met with multitudes of his people who can tell of answers to prayer. What is more, we are ourselves among that number. Looking back on my diary, I find it studded with answers to prayer. Often when I have talked with friends of an evening, telling them a few cases in which God has heard my cries in time of need, they have said, “Have you written these down?” “Well, no, I cannot say that I have.” “Oh,” says one, “pray do not let such facts be lost.” I have to reply that many cases of answered prayer are quite beyond the belief of average people. I know them to be true, but I do not expect others to believe my tale. When William Huntington wrote his “Bank of Faith,” some people called it a “Bank of Nonsense.” I could write twenty “Banks of Faith,” and every word should be as sure as an honest man could write; but the only result would be, that people would say, “Oh, well, you know, that is the result of the good man’s fanaticism.” The moment that the moderns do not like to believe a thing, they call it fanatical. If we were put into a witness-box to-morrow, our testimony would have weight with the court; but yet, the moment we talk about God’s hearing prayer, oh, then we are romancing, and our witness is not to be received. But, brothers and sisters, we bear a true witness, whether men receive it or not. I solemnly declare that no fact is better proved by my experience than this, that the Lord hears the prayers of his believing people. You, each one, will know for himself, or herself, whether there is a God that hears prayer. Does he answer your petitions? Brethren, you are sure that he does, and at the asking of the question you bow your heads and say, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” My dear brother, William Olney, sits here among us: have we not prayed him twice back from the gates of the grave? He lives as an instance of answered prayer. There is not a stone or a beam about this great Tabernacle but has been an answer to our prayers. In days when, as a congregation, we were few and feeble, we ventured on the serious enterprise of building this great house, and we prayed it up stone by stone, to the praise and glory of God. If we who worship beneath this dome did not believe in prayer, the stones out of the wall would cry out against us.

But I hear a voice saying, “There are so many difficulties about prayer being heard.” Are there? The farther I go in this life, the more difficulties I am informed of, though I should not have discovered them myself. I am assured that there are great difficulties about eating, breathing, and sleeping. As to the very air, I do not know what it is not full of: it teems with the seeds of disease, and the wonder is that we live at all. But we do live, do we not? and we shall eat our suppers to-night despite the difficulties in connection with food. As to the difficulties connected with prayer, they are altogether philosophical difficulties, and by no means practical ones. If you are philosophers, you may weary your heads about them; but if you are simple, practical people, you may pray, and receive the blessing.

“Ay, but the power of prayer with God supposes that God may change.” Well, our doing anything supposes that, but it is a mere supposition. Your even walking home to-night might raise a difficulty as to the decrees of God; but it is a non-existent difficulty. After you have entertained it as long as you like, you will find that you have entertained a shadow. Suppose that you leave off supposing, and just do as God tells you, and see whether it does not work. When you find that it does practically work, let other people enjoy the difficulties. I do not eat meat; but if I did, I should always feel quite satisfied to let my dogs have the bones: the meat would satisfy me. If there are any difficulties about prayer, the dogs may have them-I mean the philosophers; but as for us, simple Christian people, we are satisfied with the meat of the precious fact that prayer brings every blessing from above. We pray, and God hears us, and that is enough for us. Our God does not change his will, and yet he wills a change in answer to prayer.

I have done when I have made this further remark. I cannot expect any man to believe that he can commune with God, or that God will in very deed hear his prayer, and grant him his desire, unless he has been led personally to try it. But if, by the Spirit of God, he has been led to seek after God, and to draw near to God, I shall have no need of further arguments with him. That man has now entered upon a new life, in which he will be capable of understanding new things. Until he does enter upon that life, he is spiritually deaf, and blind; and what can he know about spiritual realities? Our Lord has said to us, “Ye must be born again.” When we are born again, then the life within turns toward the life of God, and has fellowship with God, and God answers to it, and the desire of the godly one is granted. Oh! the honour of communion with God! Happy beings who enjoy it! How unspeakable the privilege of pouring out your hearts before God! Delight yourselves therein before you fall asleep this night. Oh, the holy quietude which it brings! You have not an ounce of care to carry, because all your burden is, in prayer and supplication, laid on him that careth for you! Oh, the love that dwells in the heart of the man who draws near to God in prayer! You cannot love God at a distance. You must draw nearer, and nearer, or love will not rest. As when one comes into the sunshine, he feels the warmth, so when we come nearer to God we have more joy in him. Keep near to God; abound in prayer; let your supplications be instant and constant; and you will be sure that the Father himself hears your cries!

Oh, that some here who never prayed would begin at once! Trust in Jesus, the Intercessor, and let that trust show itself by pleading the merit of his blood in earnest prayer. Oh, that you would now begin that holy life of prayer which shall lead up to the eternal life of praise at the right hand of God. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Psalm 86.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-34 (Version I.), 37 (Song II.), 40.