It is a very blessed thing for a child of God to be anxious to glorify his Heavenly Father, whether his wish is realized or not. The strong desire to magnify God is acceptable to him, and is an indication of spiritual health. It is certain, in the long run, to bring blessing to our own souls; and I have frequently noticed that, when we earnestly desire to do something special for the Lord, he generally does something for us very much of the same kind. David wished to build a house for God. “No,” says Jehovah, “thou hast been a man of war, and I will not employ a warrior in spiritual business; but I will build thee a house.” So, although David may not build a house for God, it is well that the plan of it is in his heart; and God, in return, builds up his house, and sets his son, and his son’s son, upon the throne after him. But, my dear friend, if thou shouldst not find an opportunity to do all that is in thine heart, yet, nevertheless, it is well that it is there. Carry out the project if thou canst; but if thou canst not, it may be that, as thou hast desired to deal with the Lord, so will he really deal with thee. If you have sown sparingly, you shall reap sparingly. If you have sown liberally, you shall reap largely; for, often and often, the Lord’s dealings with his own people are a sort of echo to their hearts of their dealings with him.

Sometimes it happens that God will not let his servants do what they would most of all like to do. David had long been storing up gold and silver in great quantities that he might build that house for the Lord. It had been the great project of his life that he might make a fit sanctuary for the ark of the covenant. “I dwell,” said he, “in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains.” The dream of his life was that he might build a magnificent temple, which should be supremely gorgeous for architecture, and rich in all the treasures of the ends of the earth, that there the ark of his God might be appropriately housed. But the Lord would not have it so. David might pray about it, and think about it, and plan about it, and save his money for it; but the Lord would not have it so. It was not in that particular way that David was to serve his God. And I have known some good Christian young men who felt that they must be preachers. They had not the proper gifts and qualifications for the ministry, but they felt that they must preach; so they have striven very hard, but at all points they have met with rebuffs. People, who have heard them once, have been quite satisfied, and have not desired to hear them again. Doors have been shut against them, no conversions have followed their efforts, and thus God has said to each one of them, “Not so, my son; not in that way shalt thou serve me.” And there are others, who have had other plans in their heads,-brethren and sisters, who have arranged wonderful schemes and plans, which they have dreamed over, and said, “Thus and thus will we serve God.” Yet, hitherto, my brother, you have had to keep to the workman’s bench; and you, my sister, have had to keep to nursing those little children. Up till now, you have not been very successful in any special path of usefulness, or that which is commonly thought to be the path of usefulness. But God knows best, and he has uses for all the vessels in his house, and it is not right for any one vessel to say, “I will be used here, or there, or not at all;” but it is for God to use us as he pleases.

Every private soldier would like to be an officer, but it is only a very few who ever will be; and if every private soldier could be an officer, what sort of an army would it be where all were officers, and none were men in the ranks? So we would, perhaps, each of us, like to do something more remarkable than we have hitherto done; but it is for our great Commander to say to this man, “Stand here,” or to that man, “Go there;” and it ought to be equally a matter of contentment to us whether God permits us to serve him here or there. I think it was good Mr. Jay who used to say that, if there were two angels in heaven, and God wanted one of them to go and be the ruler of a kingdom, and the other to sweep a crossing, the two angels would not have the slightest choice which post they would have provided that they knew they had the Lord’s command to occupy either position. Brother, if ever the Lord should rebuff thee, and seem to refuse that which thou desirest to offer to him, do not sulk; do not get into a bad spirit, as some have done in similar circumstances; but know that the very essence of Christian service is to be willing not to serve in that particular way if, by not serving, God would be the more glorified. Be willing, O vessel in the house of the Lord, to be hung up on a nail in the wall, be willing to be laid aside in a corner, if so God would be glorified, for thus was it with David. God would not let him erect the temple which he wished to build, but he gave him great blessings in return for his desires; and then David, instead of sulking, and saying, “Well, then, as I cannot have my own will, I will do nothing at all,” went in, and sat before the Lord, and blessed and praised him, and never uttered one grumbling or surly word, but blessed the name of the Lord from the beginning of his meditation even to its close. Oh, to have a heart moulded after the like fashion!

In the midst of David’s memorable address to God, we meet with this suggestive expression: “Thy servant hath found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee.” I am going to speak upon that subject in this way. First, concerning David’s prayer, how did he come by it? Secondly, how came this prayer to be in his heart? And, thirdly, how may we get into such a condition that we shall find prayers in our hearts?

First, then, how did David come by his prayer? He tells us that he found it in his heart: “Thy servant hath found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee.”

Then it is pretty clear that he looked for it in his heart. How many men seem to begin to pray without really thinking about prayer! They rush, without preparation or thought, into the presence of God. Now, no loyal subject would seek an audience of his sovereign, to present a petition, without having first carefully prepared it; but many seem to think there is no need to look for a prayer, or to find one, when they approach the mercy-seat. They appear to imagine that they have only just to repeat certain words, and to stand or kneel in a certain attitude, and that is prayer. But David did not make that mistake; he found his prayer in his heart. David and his heart were well acquainted; he had long been accustomed to talk with himself. There are some men, who know a thousand other people, but who do not know their own selves; the greatest stranger to them, in the whole world, is their own heart. They have never looked into it, never talked with it, never examined it, never questioned it. They follow its evil devices, but they scarcely know that they have a heart, they so seldom look into it. But David, when he wanted to pray, went and looked in his heart to see what he could find there, and he found in his heart to pray this prayer to God.

This leads me to say, dear friends, that the best place in which to find a prayer is to find it in your heart. Some would have fetched down a book, and they would have said, “Let us see; what is the day of the month,-how many Sundays after Advent? This is the proper prayer for to-day.” But David did not go to a book for his prayer, he turned to his heart to see what he could find there that he might pray unto God. Others of us would, perhaps, have been content to find a prayer in our heads. We have been accustomed to extemporize in prayer, and so, perhaps, bowing the knee, we should have felt that the stream of supplication would flow because we are so habituated to speaking with God in prayer. Ah, dear friend, it is no worse to find a prayer in a book than to find it in your head! It is very much the same thing whether the prayer be printed or be extemporized; unless it comes from the heart, it is equally dead in either case.

How many, too, have found a prayer upon their lips! It is a very common thing with those who pray in prayer-meetings, and those of us who pray in public, for our lips to run much faster than our hearts move, and it is one of the things we need to cry to God to keep us from, lest we should be run away with by our own tongues, as men are, sometimes, run away with by their horses, which they cannot restrain; and you know, the horse never goes faster than when he has very little to carry. And, sometimes, words will come at a very rapid rate when there is very little real prayer conveyed by them. This is not as it ought to be with us, and we must look into our hearts for the desire to pray, and if we do not find it in our hearts to pray a prayer, let us rest assured that we shall not be accepted before the throne of God.

How was it that David found this prayer in his heart? I think it was because his heart had been renewed by divine grace. Prayer is a living thing; you cannot find a living prayer in a dead heart. Why seek ye the living among the dead, or search the sepulchre to find the signs and tokens of life? No, sir, if you have not been made alive by the grace of God, you cannot pray. The dead cannot pray, and the spiritually dead cannot pray; but the moment you begin to pray, it is a sign that life has been given to you. Ananias knew that Saul was a living soul when God said to him, “Behold, he prayeth.” “It is all right,” said Ananias; “for the Lord must have quickened his heart.” David found this prayer in his heart because his was a living heart.

And he found it there, also, because his was a believing heart. How can a man pray if he does not believe in God, or if he merely thinks that there may be a supernatural Being, somewhere or other in the universe, but that he is not within hail,-and cannot be made to hear,-or is not a living personality, or, if he is, he is too great to care about us, or to listen to the words of a man. But, when the Lord has taught you the truth about his own existence, and his real character, when he has come so near to you that you know that he is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him, then, in that believing heart of yours prayer will spring up as the corn springs up in the furrows of the field. The Lord, who has sown in your heart the seed of faith, will make that seed to spring up in the green blade of prayer. It must be so; but, until you do believe in God, you cannot pray. It would be useless for me to say to some men, “You should pray,” when I recollect that Christ has said, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth;” and that is what these men cannot do. How can they, therefore, pray acceptably? “He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” Where there is that true faith in God, there is fervent prayer in the heart; but nowhere else.

David’s was also a serious heart. Some men’s hearts are flippant, trifling, full of levity. God forbid that we should condemn holy cheerfulness! As oil to the wheels of a machine, so is cheerfulness to a man’s conversation; but there is a frothiness, a superficiality, a frivolity, which is far too common. Some men do not seem to think seriously about anything. They have no settled principles; they are “everything by starts, and nothing long.” “The Vicar of Bray” is their first cousin. Perhaps they have scarcely as much principle as he had, for they do not so steadily seek their own interests, and scarcely seek any interest at all but that of the transient pleasure of the hour. If that is your case, I do not wonder that you cannot pray. A man says, “I cannot find prayer in my heart.” No, how should you? Yours is a heart full of chaff, full of dust, full of rubbish,-a heart tangled and overgrown with weeds,-a sluggard’s heart, where grow the nettles of evil desire and unholy passion,-where live the docks and thistles of idleness and neglect. Oh, may God grant us the grace to have serious hearts,-hearts that are in solemn earnest,-hearts that are intense,-hearts that can really give due heed to things according to their merits, and that give to eternal things their chief concern, because eternal things deserve them best. David’s heart was a serious heart; and, therefore, he found this prayer in it.

And, once again, David’s was a humble heart, for a man who is proud will not pray. A man who is self-righteous will not pray, except it be in the fashion of the Pharisee, and that was no prayer at all. But a man, humbly conscious of his soul’s needs, and realizing the guilt of his sins,-that is the man to pour out his heart in prayer before the living God. I pray the Lord graciously to break your hearts; for, unless our hearts are broken in penitence, we shall never find in them a real prayer unto God.

There are some of you who have got on wonderfully since your Lord called you by his grace. You were wretched enough when he looked at you, cast out in the open field, covered with blood and filthiness; and he washed you, and clothed you, and nourished you, and now he has even begun to use you in his service, and you are already beginning to be rather proud that he has given you some success. I charge you, brothers and sisters, not to pilfer any of the glory that belongs to God alone. Never begin to throw up your caps, and to cry, “Well done!” It is all up with us if we do that. Keep down low, my brother; keep down low, my sister. The lower we keep, and the more we fear and tremble,-not through unbelief, mark you, (that kind of fear I denounce with all my heart,) but with that really believing trembling and believing fear that grows out of genuine love to Christ, and is not inconsistent with that love,-the more we have of that sort of fear, the more securely shall we walk, and the more will it be safe for God to trust us with his goodness. When your ship floats very high upon the water, I hope that you will not have much sail spread, or else the vessel will almost certainly go over; but when it floats low, almost down to the Plimsoll line, you may crowd on as much sail as you like. If you carry but little ballast, and you have huge sails up aloft, the first gust of wind will topple you over; but if you are well ballasted,-that is to say, if you are weighed down with a sense of your own unworthiness, you will weather any gale that may come upon you, God the Holy Ghost being in the vessel with you, and holding the helm.

I pause here a moment just to ask each one,-Do you pray? Do you present to God prayers that come from your heart? I do not ask whether you use a form of prayer, or not; but does your heart really go with the prayer you offer? I think I hear someone say, “I always say my prayers.” Ah, my dear friend, there is as great a difference between saying prayers and really praying as there was between the dead child and the living one that were brought before Solomon! Saying prayers is not praying. Why, you might as well say your prayers backward as forward unless your heart goes with them! It is quite extraordinary how some people can use a form of prayer without any thought whatever as to its meaning. Some time ago, a man, seventy years of age, was asked if he prayed; he replied that he always had prayed, and he would tell the enquirer the prayer he used. It turned out that he still persisted in repeating what his mother taught him when he was a child, “Pray, God, bless father and mother, and make me a good boy.” He had got those words so deeply engraven upon his memory that he still kept to them at his advanced age. Naturally, you smile at the story; yet it is very pitiful. It may be an extreme instance, but still it is a clear instance of what I mean,-that there is a way of merely saying prayers which is rather a mockery of God than a real approach to him such as he desires.

“Well,” saith one, “I never pray.” I question the truth of that assertion; but if it is true, there is another thing that I do know, and that is this, the time will come when you will want to pray. Let me explain what I mean when I say that I question your assertion about never praying. I have heard men pray who would have thought themselves insulted if they had been told that they did. What awful prayers they have presented to God when they have imprecated upon their souls, and bodies, and eyes, and limbs, and children, and everything else, the most terrible curses from God! There are some men who will do this at the least provocation. O sirs, mind that God does not grant you your wicked requests! I am afraid that, when an ungodly man prays in that shameless way, he does find his prayer in his heart; and I am also afraid that his heart must be full of damnation, or he would not find so many oaths in it; for that which comes out of a man is what is in him, and when you hear a man swear, you know that there is a deal of “swear” in his heart, for the language in which he dares to imprecate God’s vengeance proves how alienated his heart must be from God.

I would remind you, who do not pray, that you will want to pray one day. If there were to be a pledge exacted from you that you never would pray to God,-if you were offered money never to pray, suppose you took the money, and promised never to pray,-I know what you would think; you would say to yourself, “What shall I do with this money? It is the price of my soul’s salvation.” It would strike you at once that it was an awful thing never to be allowed to pray, and you would feel that you had sold yourself to the devil, body and soul, and you would be in dire trouble. Well, but, as you say that you never pray, you might as well take the money that is offered to you. As you do not pray, I do not see what use the privilege of prayer is to you. “If it be of any use to pray to God,” say you, “I shall pray at the last.” Then pray now, for you never know what may be your last moment. Who knows how close you may be to your grave even while you are sitting in your pew? You saw one friend faint, just now; and we have seen hearers fall back dead even while gathered in the congregation. God grant that we may not see it again! Still, the fact that it has happened is a loud call to all of us bidding us begin to pray.

Thus I have shown you where David found his prayer; he found it in his heart.

I answer that he found it in his heart because the Lord put it there. Every true heart-prayer, that is accepted of God, first came from God. The Lord Jesus passed by David’s heart, and threw this prayer in at the window; and then, when the good man went down to look for a prayer, he found this prayer lying on the floor of his heart ready for him to use.

How does God put prayers into a man’s heart? I answer, first, he instructs us how to pray. We none of us know how to pray aright till we have been to school to the Holy Spirit. We know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit comes, and shows us our need. Thus we see what to pray for. He also shows us what Christ has provided for us, and thus we see what we may hope to obtain. He shows us, too, that the way to God is through the precious blood of Jesus, and he leads us along that crimson, blood-besprinkled road, and so, by his instruction, he puts the prayer into our hearts.

In the next place, he puts it there by inclining us to pray. Benjamin Beddome wrote,-

“When God inclines the heart to pray,

He hath an ear to hear;”-

and his short hymn contains a great truth. God does bend the heart to pray; and, oftentimes, he does this by filling us with sorrow; and, then, in the day of our distress, we cry unto him. But I have also known him do it in the sweeter way, as he did with David, by filling the heart with joy till we have been so glad and grateful that we have felt that we must pray, as David did, on another occasion, when he said, “Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.”

So, the Lord puts prayer into our heart by instructing us how to pray and by inclining us to pray.

Then he puts prayer into the heart by encouragement. You notice that my text begins with “Therefore.” “Therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee.” What does David mean by that “therefore”? Why, God had promised to do great things for him; and, my brother or sister, you may always safely ask for that which God has promised to give. When he gives you the promise of anything, he does as good as say to you, “Come, my child, ask for this; be not slow to come to me with your requests.” If the Lord has said that he will bestow any blessing, what greater encouragement to pray can you possibly desire? But this promise, according to the Hebrew, had been given to David in a very special manner. In our version, it is rendered, “Thou hast revealed to thy servant;” but the marginal reading is, “Thou hast opened the ear of thy servant.” A promise in the Bible is, often, a promise to a deaf ear; but the promise, applied by the Spirit of God, goes right through the outer organ, and penetrates to the ear of the soul. I am sure, dear friends, that you can never be backward in prayer when God opens your ear, and puts a promise into it. The richness, the sweetness, the sureness, the preciousness of the promise, when the Holy Spirit seals it home to the heart, makes a man go to his knees, he cannot help doing so; and thus, the Lord greatly encourages the needy soul to pray.

I will not keep you longer upon this point when I have just said that I believe God puts prayers into our hearts by a sense of his general goodness. We see how kind and good he is to the sons of men as a whole; and, therefore, we pray to him. By his special goodness to his own chosen people, we see still more of his compassion and tenderness, and so we are moved to pray to him. Especially does he put prayer into our hearts when he gives us a sight of the cross. We see there how greatly Jesus loved us, and, therefore, we pray. We rightly argue that he, who gave Jesus for us, will deny to us nothing that is for our good; and, therefore, again we pray. Often are we stirred up to pray by the recollection of former answers to prayer, and sometimes by observing how God hears other men and other women pray. Anyhow, it is a blessed thing when the Lord comes by, and scatters the seeds of prayer in our hearts, so that, when we want to pray, we have only to look within our own renewed nature and there we find the prayer that we shall do well to pray unto God.

Our last question, upon which I must speak but briefly, is this. What must you and I do in order to be able to find prayers in our hearts?

Ah, dear friends, I am afraid that some of you can do nothing in this matter until, first of all, your hearts are renewed by grace. “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” No one. And who can fetch an acceptable prayer out of an unaccepted person? No one. So, sinner, thou must first come to Jesus, confessing thy sin, and looking to his dear wounds, and finding a broken heart within thee as the result of his pierced heart; and when the Lord has looked upon you in his pardoning love, then you will find many prayers in your heart.

I asked a young friend, “Did you pray before conversion?” She answered that she did pray “after a sort.” I then enquired, “What is the difference between your present prayers and those you offered before you knew the Lord?” Her answer was, “Then, I said my prayers; but, now, I mean them. Then, I said the prayers which other people taught me; but, now, I find them in my heart.” There is good reason to cry “Eureka!” when we find prayer in our heart. Holy Bradford would never cease praying or praising till he found his heart thoroughly engaged in the holy exercise. If it be not in my heart to pray, I must pray till it is. But, oh, the delight of pleading with God when the heart casts forth mighty jets of supplication, like a geyser in full action! How mighty is supplication when the whole soul becomes one living, hungering, expecting desire!

But some Christian people often feel as if they could not pray; they get into a condition in which they are not able to pray, and that is a very sad state for any child of God to be in. How much do I personally desire ever to possess the true spirit of prayer! When I was at Mr. Rowland Hill’s house at Wotton-under-Edge, many years ago, I asked, “Where did Mr. Hill use to pray?” And the answer of someone, who had known him when he was there, was, “He used to pray everywhere.” I said, “Yes; but did he not have a special place for prayer?” The reply was, “I do not know; I never saw him when he was not praying.” “Well, but,” I asked, “did he not study somewhere?” I was told that he was always studying, wherever he went, yet that he was always in the spirit of prayer. The good old man, at last, had got into such a blessed state of mind that, when he sat down on the sofa, he would be going over a familiar hymn; and when he walked in the garden, he would be to-tooting something gracious. You know how they found him, in George Clayton’s chapel over yonder. His carriage had not come, after the service, and he was walking up and down the aisles, softly singing to himself,-

“And when I’m to die, ‘Receive me,’ I’ll cry;

For Jesus hath loved me, I cannot tell why;

But this I do find, we two are so joined,

He’ll not be in glory, and leave me behind.”

Good old soul! he had got to find it in his heart to pray always. He used to wander down the Blackfriars Road, with his hands under his coat tails, and stop to look in very nearly every shop-window; but, all the while, he was talking with God just as much as any man could have done who had shut himself up in a cloister. This is a blessed state of mind to be in,-to find as many prayers in your soul as there are hairs on your head; to pray as often as the clock ticks; to wake up in the night, and feel that you have been dreaming prayers; and when you rise in the morning, to find that your first thought is either that of praising God for his many mercies, or else pleading for somebody or other who needs your prayers.

How are you to get into this state? Well, I cannot tell you, except this; live near to God. If you live near to God, you must pray. He that learns how to live near to God will learn how to pray, and to give thanks to God. Look into your hearts, also, as David did. You cannot find prayer there if you do not look for it. Think much of your own needs, for a realization of how many and how great they are will make you pray. When you see the falls of others, recollect that you also will fall unless God holds you up; so make that a reason and subject for prayer. When you see others, who are slack in devotion, or who have become cold in heart, remember you will be as they are if grace does not prevent. So, let your own needs drive you to prayer.

Then read the Scriptures very much; study them; suck the sweetness out of them, for they are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. You cannot fail to be much in prayer if you spend much time in the reading of the Word. If you will let God speak to you, I am sure you will be constrained to speak with God. Dwell much upon the doctrines of the gospel; seek to understand them; live upon them, and upon the promises, too. It is a blessed temptation to find one of God’s precious promises, for you feel then as if you were tempted to pray, so, as to plead it. If a man were to give me a cheque, I do not think I should be so foolish as not to cash it; and if God gives me a promise, which is better than any man’s cheque, the most natural thing is for me to go on my knees to heaven’s bank to seek to have it changed,-to get the blessing God really promised he would give me. So, keep hard by the promises, and closer still to the faithful Promiser. Live to God; live for God; live in God; and you will find prayers come out of your soul as sparks come out of the chimney of the blacksmith’s smithy. If there is a blazing fire within, and the bellows blowing it up, and the smith is hard at work in his calling, the sparks will fly. And in this cold weather, dear brethren, it is necessary to keep our hearts warm. Have you noticed thatched cottages, and other houses where the snow lies on the roof? You say, “Yes.” But have you noticed, where there is a good fire in the house, anywhere near the roof, how soon the snow is melted? And if you want to get warm, and keep warm, in the midst of a cold, graceless world, that chills the very marrow in a believer’s bones, keep a warm heart inside, for that will tend to make it warm outside too. God grant you this blessing, and keep you ever abounding in prayer; and he shall have all the praise.

I do trust that some, who never prayed before, will try to pray. Nobody ever sneers at prayer but the man who does not pray, and nobody ever denies its efficacy but the man who knows nothing at all about it. And such men are out of court, and have no right to speak upon this matter. But men who are honest in other things, and who would be believed in a court of law, should be believed when they bear their solemn testimony that, times without number, God has heard their prayers. Try it, friend. God help thee to try it! Especially begin by believing in Jesus, and then shalt thou rightly seek unto the Almighty, and he will be found of thee. Yea, thou shalt lift up thine eyes to heaven, and the Lord will look down upon thee, and accept thee, and bless thee, both now and for ever. So may it be, for his dear Son’s sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

2 SAMUEL 7:18-29; and LUKE 18:1-14

2 Samuel 7 Verse 18. Then went king David in, and sat before the Lord,-

David desired to build a temple for God, and the prophet Nathan, conceiving that such a design must be acceptable to the Most High, told the king to proceed with it; but God’s mind was otherwise, and Nathan had to tell David that it was well that it was in his heart, but that God intended the temple to be built, not by him, but by his son Solomon. However, the Lord gave to David very large promises, and when he had received them, through Nathan, he was so overcome with gratitude that he went in, and “sat before the Lord.” That was his posture in prayer on this occasion. Good men have been known to pray kneeling, which seems to be the most natural attitude. Some have prayed with their faces between their knees, as Elias did. Some have prayed standing, as the publican did. Some have prayed sitting, as David did. Probably, he was mingling prayer and meditation when he “sat before the Lord,”-

18. And he said, Who am I, O Lord God? and what is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto?

How often has a similar feeling leaped into our heart! Why should the Lord have dealt so well with us?

“What was there in you that could merit esteem,

Or give the Creator delight?”

19. And this was yet a small thing in thy sight, O Lord God; but thou hast spoken also of thy servant’s house for a great while to come. And is this the manner of man, O Lord God?

No; man could not have been so kind as that. The love of Jesus surpasses the love of women, and the love of God surpasses all the kindness of men.

20. And what can David say more unto thee? for thou, Lord God, knowest thy servant.

“What I cannot utter, thou canst perceive in my heart, though I cannot express it.”

21-25. For thy word’s sake, and according to thine own heart, hast thou done all these great things, to make thy servant know them. Wherefore thou art great, O Lord God: for there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears. And what one nation in the earth is like thy people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to himself, and to make him a name, and to do for you great things and terrible, for thy land, before thy people, which thou redeemedst to thee from Egypt, from the nations and their gods? For thou hast confirmed to thyself thy people Israel to be a people unto thee for ever: and thou, Lord, art become their God. And now, O Lord God, the word that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant, and concerning his house, establish it for ever, and do as thou hast said.

That is a very short, but exceedingly pithy prayer: “Do as thou hast said.” You do not need any larger promises, brethren, than the Lord has already given to you: could he give you any larger ones?

“What more can he say than to you he hath said,

You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?”

What you have to do is to take the promises he has given, and spread them out before the mercy-seat, and then say to him, “Do as thou hast said.” What strength there is in this plea! “Hath he said, and shall he not do it?” Will he break his promise, or shall his right hand fail to perform that which has gone forth from his lips? Far be it from us to think so, but let us say to him, “Do as thou hast said.” That is the very essence of prayer. Take care not to forget it.

26-29. And let thy name be magnified for ever, saying, The Lord of hosts is the God over Israel: and let the house of thy servant David be established before thee. For thou, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, hast revealed to thy servant, saying, I will build thee an house: therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee. And now, O Lord God, thou art that God, and thy words be true, and thou hast promised this goodness unto thy servant: therefore now let it please thee to bless the house of thy servant, that it may continue for ever before thee:

You see how he clings to God’s promise: “Thou hast promised this goodness unto thy servant.” If you get a promise from the Lord, and cling to it as you wrestle with the angel, you will surely prevail. You must win the blessing if you can plead, as David did, “Thou hast promised this goodness unto thy servant.”

29. For thou, O Lord God, hast spoken it:

How he dwells on it!

29. And with thy blessing let the house of thy servant be blessed for ever.

Now let us read two of our Lord’s parables concerning prayer.

Luke 18 Verses 1-8. And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: and there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

The whole force of this parable goes to show the prevalence of importunity. If you cannot get your desire of God the first time, go again, and, if need be, go again seven times. Yea, if need be, in submission to his will, go seventy times seven. I am afraid there is no fear of our having to be asked the question, “Will ye weary my God also?” Oh, no! we do not pray enough for that, neither are we so importunate as this poor widow was. Let us prove the power of importunate prayer, and rest assured that heaven’s gate must open if we do but know how to knock, and that the blessing must be given if we do but continue to ask for it, for praying breath is never spent in vain.

9-11. And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.

And he drew up his skirts, and got to windward, for fear lest any breath that should blow from the publican should defile his sanctified person.

12. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

It was not a prayer at all, as you perceive. It was a thanksgiving; but the thanksgiving was merely a veil for self-adulation.

13. And the publican, standing afar off,-

Not daring to come near to the inner shrine,-

13. Would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.

I do not suppose that he thought he had really prayed; he scarcely dared to call it prayer. Perhaps, as he went home, he said, “I went up to the temple to pray, but I was so bowed down with a sense of my guilt that I could not pray.” But that was not our Lord’s verdict:-

14. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-992, 996, 229.

REVELATION AND CONVERSION

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, February 11th, 1904,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Lord’s-day Evening, January 23rd, 1876.

“The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.”-Psalm 19:7.

When he spoke of “the law of the Lord”, David did not merely mean the law as it was given in the ten commandments, although that also is perfect, and is used, to some extent, in the conversion of souls. The term includes the entire doctrine of God,-the whole divine revelation; and though, in David’s day, there was not so full and clear a revelation as we have,-for the New Testament was not then given, nor much of the Old Testament, yet the text has lost none of its former force, but has rather gained more; so I shall use it as applicable to the entire Scriptures,-to the law and to the gospel, and to all that God has revealed; and speaking of it in that sense, I may truly say that it is perfect, and that it converts the soul.

A tree is known by its fruit, and a book must be tested by its effects. There are some books which bear their fruit for the hangman and the jail; and such books are very widely spread nowadays. They are frequently embellished with engravings, and put into the hands of boys and girls, and a crop of criminals is constantly the result of their publication and circulation. There have been books written which have spread moral contagion throughout centuries. I need not mention them; but if it were possible to gather them all together in one heap, and burn them as the Ephesians burnt their books of magic, it would be one of the greatest blessings conceivable. Yet, if that were done, I fear that other wicked brains would be set to work to think out similar blasphemies, and that other hands would be found to scatter their vile productions.

The Word of God must be tested, like other books, by the effect which it produces; and I am going to speak upon one of its effects to which many of us here present can bear personal witness. The old proverb says, “Speak as you find;” and I am going to speak of the Bible as I have found it,-to praise the bridge that has carried me over every difficulty until now, and that has carried a great many of you over also. We know that the law of the Lord is good because it converts the soul; and, to our mind, the best proof of its purity and power is that it has converted our soul.

My first object will be to show how the Word of God converts the soul; then to show the excellence of the work of conversion; and, therefore, thirdly, the excellence of that Book which produces conversion.

First, then, I am to show how the Word of God converts the soul.

Man’s face is turned away from his Maker. Ever since the fatal day when our first parents broke the law of God, we have been, all of us, guilty of the same great crime. We stand as men who have their backs to the light, and we are going the downward road, the road which leads to destruction. What we need is to be turned round, for that is the meaning of the word “converted”-turned right about. We need to hear the command, “Right about face,” and to march in the opposite direction from any in which we have ever marched before. Our text truly says that the Word of God turns us round. It does not mean that the Word alone does that apart from the Spirit of God, because a man may read the Bible through fifty times, and, for fifty years, hear sermons that have all come out of the Bible, and yet they will never turn him unless the Spirit of God makes use of the Word of God or the preacher’s sermons. But when the Spirit of God goes with the Word, then the Word becomes the instrument of the conversion of the souls of men.

This is how the work of conversion is wrought. First, it is by the Scriptures of truth that men are made to see that they are in error. There are millions upon millions of men, in the world, who are going the wrong way, yet they do not know it; and there are tens of thousands, who believe that they are even doing God service, when they are utterly opposing him. Some who, as far as it is in their power, are even slaying Christ, know not what they are doing. One of the pleas that our Saviour used upon the cross was, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” To take my own case, I know that, for years, I was not conscious of having committed any great sin. I had been, by God’s restraining grace, kept from outward immoralities, and from gross transgressions, and therefore I thought I was all right. Did I not pray? Did I not attend a place of worship? Did I not do what was right towards my fellow-men? Did I not, even as a child, have a tender conscience? It seemed to me, for a time, that all was well; and, perhaps, I am addressing someone else who says, “Well, if I am not right, I wonder who is; and if I have gone wrong, where must my neighbours be going?” Ah, that is often the way we talk! As long as we are blind, we can see no faults in ourselves; but when the Spirit of God comes to us, and reveals to us the law of God, then we perceive that we have broken the whole of the ten commandments, in the spirit, if not in the letter of them. Even the chastest of men may well tremble when they remember that searching word of Christ, “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” When you understand that the commandments of God not only forbid wrong actions, but also the desires, and imaginations, and thoughts of the heart, and that, consequently, a man may commit murder while he lies in his bed,-may rob his neighbour without touching a penny of his money or any of his goods,-may blaspheme God though he never uttered an oath, and may break all the commands of the law, from the first to the last, before he has put on his garments in the morning;-when you come to examine your life in that light, you will see that you are in a very different condition than you thought you were in. Think, for instance, of that solemn declaration of our Lord, “I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” It is by bringing home to the heart such truths as these that the Spirit of God, through the Word, makes a man see that he is in error, and in danger; and this is the beginning of his conversion. You cannot turn a man round as long as he believes he is going in the right way. While he has that idea in his head, he goes straight on, marching, as he supposes, safely; so the very first thing to be done to him is to let him see that there is a terrible precipice right before him, over which he will fall if he goes on as he is going. When he realizes that, he stops, and considers his position.

Then the Word of God comes in, in the next place, to take the man off from all attempts to get round by wrong ways. When a man knows that he is going wrong, his instinct should lead him to seek to get right; but, unhappily, many people try to get right by getting wrong in another direction. A good man sent me a volume of his poems, the other day. As soon as I looked into it, I saw that there was one line of the verse that was too short, and the good brother evidently felt that it was, so he tried to set the matter right by making the next line too long, which, as you see at once, made two faults instead of one. In like manner, you will find that men, who are wrong in one direction with regard to their fellow-men, often become very superstitious, and go a great deal further in other directions than God asks them to go, and so, practically, make a long line towards God in order to make up for the short line towards men, and thus they commit two errors instead of one. Here is a sheep that has gone astray; it has wandered so far to the East that, in order to get right, it tries to go just as far to the West; and if convinced that it is in the wrong road, all it does is to stray just as far to the North; and, by-and-by, to the South. It is wandering all the while in a different way, with the intent to get back to the fold; and, in this respect, sinners are just as silly as the sheep. Now, the Word of God tells a man that, by the works of the law, he cannot be justified; it tells him that his heart is defiled, that he himself is condemned already, that he is shut up under condemnation for having broken God’s law, and indicates to him that, whatever he may do, or however much he may struggle, if he does not seek salvation in God’s way, he will only make the bad worse, and be like a drowning man who sinks the faster the more he struggles. When the Word of God shows a man that, and makes him feel as though he were hopeless, helpless, shut up in the condemned cell, it has done a great deal towards turning him round.

The next thing the Word of God does is to show the man how he might get right. And, oh, how perfectly it shows him this! It comes to the man, and says to him, “Your sin deserves punishment. God has laid that punishment upon his only-begotten Son; and, therefore, he is ready to forgive you freely for Christ’s sake, not because of anything good in you, or anything you ever can do, but entirely of his free mercy. He bids you trust yourself in the hands of Jesus that he may save you.” Come, then, and rely upon what Christ has done, and is still doing for you, and believe in the mercy of God, in Christ Jesus, to all who trust him. Oh, how clearly the Word of God sets Christ before us! It is a sort of mirror in which he is revealed. Christ himself is up in heaven, and a poor sinner, down here on earth, cannot see him however long he looks; but this Word of the Lord is like a huge looking-glass, better even than Solomon’s molten sea; and Jesus Christ looks down into this mirror, and then, if you and I come and look into it, we can see the reflection of his face. Blessed be his holy name, it is true, as Dr. Watts sings,-

“Here I behold my Saviour’s face

Almost in every page.”

There is scarcely one chapter in which Christ is not, more or less clearly, set forth as the Saviour of sinners. So the Word of God, you see, shows the man that he is in the wrong, takes him away from wrong ways of trying to get right, and then puts him in the way to get right, namely, by believing in Jesus.

But the Word of the Lord does more than that. In the power of the Holy Spirit, it helps the man to believe; for, at the first, he is quite staggered at the idea of free salvation,-instantaneous pardon,-the blotting out of sin all for nothing,-pardon for the worst and vilest freely given, and given now. The man says, “Surely, it is too good to be true.” He is filled with amazement, for God’s thoughts are as high above him, and as far out of his reach, as the heavens are above the earth. Then the Word comes to him, and says, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” The Word also says to him, “All manner of sin and of blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men.” The Word says, “The mercy of the Lord endureth for ever.” “He delighteth in mercy.” “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins.” I need not go on repeating the texts with which I hope many of you have long been familiar. There is a great number of them,-precious promises, gracious invitations, and comforting doctrines; and, as the sinner reads them, with trembling gaze, the Spirit of God applies them to his soul, and he says, “I can and I do believe in Jesus. Lord, I do gladly accept thy pardoning mercy. I look unto him who was nailed to the cross, and I find in him the cure for the serpent-bites of sin. I do and I will believe in Jesus, and venture my soul upon him.” It is thus that the Word of God converts the soul, by helping the man to believe in Jesus.

And when it has done that, the man is converted; for when a man looks to Christ alone, he has turned his face towards God. Now, he has confidence in God, and out of this grows love to God, and now he desires to please God because God has been so very gracious in providing such a Saviour for him. The man is turned right round; from rebelling against God, he has come to feel intense gratitude to his Redeemer, and he seeks to live to God’s glory as he would never have thought of doing before.

I ask you, who are the people of God, whether you have not felt, since your conversion, the power of the Word of God in sustaining you in your converted condition. Do you not often feel, as you hear the gospel preached, your heart grow warm within you? Some time ago, when I went away for a week’s holiday, I was more than a little troubled about many things. I had been, for a long while, preaching to others, and I thought I should like to feel the power of the Word in hearing it myself. I went to a little chapel in the country, and there I heard a lay brother-I think he must have been an engineer-preach a sermon. There was nothing very grand in it, except that it was full of Christ; and as I listened to it, my tears began to flow. I wish that, sometimes, some of you, my brethren, would preach, and let me take my turn at listening. Well, on that occasion, my soul was melted as I heard the gospel proclaimed very simply, and I thought, “After all, I do feel its power; I do enjoy its sweetness;” for, while I listened to it, my heart overflowed with joy and delight, and I could only sit still and weep as I heard the simple story of the cross.

And have not you, beloved, often found it so, in your experience, as you have been reading the Word of the Lord? If you ever get dull in the things of God, it is not the Bible that has made you so. If ever your heart grows cold, it is not the promises of God that have made you cold. If ever you cannot sing, and cannot pray, it is not the searching of the Scriptures that has brought you into that condition; and if you ever have the misery of hearing a sermon that deadens your spiritual life, I am quite certain that that sermon is not in harmony with the mind of God, and not according to the teaching of the Word of God. But when you hear the gospel fully and faithfully preached, if your heart is at all capable of feeling its power, it stirs your spirit, it wakes you up, it produces holy emotions,-love to God, love to your fellow-men, heart-searching, deep humiliation, ardent zeal, and all the Christian graces in full exercise. The Word of the Lord is perfect, and its effect is continually to restore and revive the soul of the Christian.

This has been to me one of the great evidences of the truth of inspiration. Standing alone at night, and looking up to the starry vault of heaven, I have asked myself, “Is this gospel, which I have believed, which I have preached to others for so many years, really true?” Being absolutely certain that there is a God,-for none but a fool can doubt that,-I have said, “Well, this gospel has made me love God. I know I love him with all my heart and soul. And whenever it exerts its rightful power over me, it makes me try to please him. Whenever I am under its influence, it makes me hate all wrong, and all meanness, and all falseness. Now, it would be a very strange thing if a lie could lead a man to act like that, so it must be true.” The moral effect of the Word of God upon one’s own nature, from day to day, becomes, in the absence of all other proof,-even if we had no other,-the surest and best evidence to a man that “the law of the Lord is perfect,” for it converts his soul.

I once heard a charming story of Robert Hall,-that mightiest of our Baptist orators,-perhaps one of the greatest and most eloquent ministers who ever lived. He was subject to fits of terrible depression of spirits; and, one night, he had been snowed up, on his way to a certain place where he was going to preach. There was such a great depth of snow that he was obliged to stay for the night at the farmhouse where he had stopped. But he must preach, he said, he had got his discourse ready, and he must deliver it; so they fetched in the servants, and the farm people, and he preached the sermon he had prepared,-a very wonderful one to be delivered in a farmhouse parlour; and after the others had all gone, he sat down by the fireside with the good man of the house, and he said to him,-a plain, country farmer, “Now tell me, Mr. So-and-so, what do you think is the sure evidence of a man being a child of God, for I sometimes am afraid I am not one?” “Oh!” said the farmer, “my dear Mr. Hall, how can you talk like that?” “Well, what do you think is the best evidence that a man is really a child of God?” “Oh!” replied the farmer, “I feel sure that, if a man loves God, it must be all right with him.” “Then,” said the farmer, as he told the story, “you should have heard him speak. He said, ‘Love God, sir? Love God? If I were damned, I would still love him; he is such a blessed Being,-so holy, so true, so gracious, so kind, so just!’ He went on for an hour, praising God, the tears running down his cheeks as he kept on saying, ‘Love him! I cannot help loving him; I must love him. Whatever he does to me, I must love him.’ ” Well, now, I have felt just like that sometimes, and then I have said to myself, “What made me love the Lord thus? Why, this that I have read about him in this blessed Book; and this that I believe that he has done for me, in the person of his dear Son; and that which brings me into such a state that I love him with all my nature, must be a right and a true thing.”

The Word of God is perfect, converting the soul. You will find it to be so the longer you live, and the more you test and try it. Whenever you go astray, it is because you get away from the Word of God; and as long as you are kept right, it is because you are drinking in the precious truth concerning Jesus as it is revealed in the Bible. That is the one perfect Book in the world, and it will make you also perfect if you will yield to its gracious influence. Only submit yourself to it, and you will, one day, become perfect, and be taken up to dwell where the perfect God, who wrote the perfect Book, will reveal to you the perfection of bliss for ever and for evermore. God grant to you, dear brethren and sisters, to know the power of this converting Book! If any of you have backslidden, I pray that this same blessed Book may bring you back. I had a letter, the other day, from the backwoods of America, that did my heart good. It was from a man, who was one of my first converts at New Park Street Chapel. He had been for years a member of the church, but he grew cold, and ceased to attend the means of grace; and, at last, he had to be excommunicated from the church. He went out to America; and there, far away, he began to examine himself, and the Spirit of God brought home to his heart the old texts which he used to hear. He writes that he was brought to his knees, and now he is actively engaged in the service of God, endeavouring to bring other backsliders and sinners to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the Word of God that will restore you, backslider; I hope it will do so this very hour, and that, soon, you will come to us, and say, “Take me into the church again, for the Lord has restored me to fellowship with him through his blessed Word.”

I must be very brief upon the second part of my subject, which is, the excellence of this work of conversion. That is a boundless theme, but I must be content just to touch upon a few points of this excellence.

When the Word of God converts a man, it takes away from him his despair, but it does not take from him his repentance. He does not think now that his sin will cast him into hell, but he does not therefore think that his sin is a trifle. He hates the sin as much as if he feared that it would destroy him for ever. That is a grand kind of conversion,-that the man, who had been in despair because of his sin, is made to know that his sin is forgiven, and yet he is not led to trifle or tamper with sin. By faith, he sees the wounds of Jesus, and he knows how Christ bled to set him free from the bondage of sin, and that makes him for ever hate sin. Is not that an excellent conversion?

True conversion also gives a man pardon, but does not make him presumptuous. His past transgression is all forgiven him, but he does not, therefore, say, “I will go, and transgress in the same fashion again. If pardon be so easily obtained, why should I not sin?” No truly converted man ever talked like that; or, if such a thought ever occurred to him, he must have said at once, “Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou savourest not the things that be of God.” Such talks as that would be diabolical. “Shall we sin, that grace may abound? God forbid!” Though the man is pardoned, he hates sin as the burnt child dreads the fire. He is afraid lest, by any inadvertent step, he should grieve his Lord, who has blotted out the past.

Further, true conversion gives a man perfect rest, but does not stop his progress. He knows that the work that has saved him is the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that he has not to add even one thread to the robe of righteousness which has been given to him; yet he desires to grow in grace, to become holier and holier, more like his Lord and Master. While he perfectly rests in Christ, he spreads the wings of his soul that he may fly higher and higher towards his Lord and Master.

Again, true conversion gives a man security, but it does not allow him to leave off being watchful. He knows that he is safe, and that he shall never perish, neither shall any pluck him out of Christ’s hands; but he is always on the watch against every enemy,-against the world, the flesh, and the devil. One of our hymn-writers puts this double truth very sweetly,-

“We have no fear that thou shouldst lose

One whom eternal love could choose;

But we would ne’er this grace abuse,

Let us not fall. Let us not fall.”

True conversion also gives a man strength and holiness, but it never lets him boast. He glories, but he glories only in the Lord. He knows that a great change has been wrought in him, but he still sees so much of his own imperfections that he mourns over them before the Lord. He has no time for boasting because all his time is taken up with repenting for his sins, believing in his Saviour, and seeking to live to the praise and glory of God.

True conversion likewise gives a harmony to all the duties of Christian life. It makes a man love his God better, and love his fellow-men better. I have no opinion of that religion which consists in a so-called profession of religion which makes a young woman leave her father and mother, and all her family, and go and shut herself up in a convent, or become a sister of misery of some sort or other. If my child, when he says that he is converted, leaves off loving his father, I have very grave doubts about his conversion; I think it must be a conversion wrought by the devil, not by God. But wherever there is true love to God, there is sure to be love to our fellow-men also. The same God, who wrote on one table certain commands in reference to himself, wrote on the other table the commands with regard to our fellow-men. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,” is certainly a divine command; and so is the other, “and thy neighbour as thyself.” True conversion balances all duties, emotions, hopes, and enjoyments.

True conversion brings a man to live for God. He does everything for the glory of God,-whether he eats, or drinks, or whatsoever he does. True conversion makes a man live before God. He used to try to fancy that God did not see him; but, now, he desires to live as in God’s sight at all times, and he is glad to be there,-glad even that God should see his sin, that he may blot it out as soon as ever he beholds it. And such a man now comes to live with God. He has blessed communion with him; he talks with him as a man talks with his friend; and, by-and-by, he shall dwell with God, throughout eternity, in the palace above. This ought to convince you what an excellent thing true and real conversion is.

I have no need to say much, in the third place, concerning the consequent excellence of the Word of God. The law of the Lord, which accomplishes such an excellent work, must be itself excellent. I will, therefore, only make one or two brief remarks, and then close.

“The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul,” right away from the beginning of conversion to the end. Whenever we want to have converts,-and I hope that is always,-the best thing for us to do is to “preach the Word.” There is nothing better; there can be nothing more; there must be nothing less. I do not wonder that, in some churches and chapels, there are no conversions, because the sermons that are preached there are not adapted to that end. They are like a book I reviewed, the other day, of which I said, that there was, possibly, one person in the world who understood it, and that was the writer of the book; and that, if he did not read it through every morning, he certainly would not know, the next day, what he meant by it. In some such fashion as that, there are sermons that are so involved, perplexing, metaphysical, and I know not what besides, that I do not see how any souls can ever be converted by them. The people need to have a dictionary in the pew, instead of a Bible; they need never turn to any Biblical references, but they need someone to explain to them the meaning of the hard words which the preacher is so fond of using. Have I not also read sermons, which were very highly polished, and which, I daresay, were preceded by a prayer that God would convert souls by them? But it was morally impossible that the Lord should do anything of the sort, unless he reversed all his usual methods of procedure, for there was nothing in the sermon that could have been made the means of the conversion of a soul. But, my dear brother, if you preach the Word of God, if you lift up the crucified Christ on the pole of the gospel, you need not be very particular about the style of your speech. You need not say, “I must be a first-class speaker; I must be a trained rhetorician.” I believe that a great deal of that first-class speaking is simply the means of veiling the cross of Christ, and that fine talk about Jesus Christ is about the last thing that poor sinners need. I sat at a hotel table, in Mentone, one evening at dinner, and I wanted to speak to a friend who was sitting opposite to me, but someone had put a most magnificent bouquet of flowers in a very splendid vase between us. I was grateful that those flowers bloomed in the middle of winter, and I was pleased to see and to smell them; but, by-and-by, I moved them on one side because they stood in the way of my view of my friend’s face. So, I admire fine language, nobody enjoys it more than I do in its proper place; I even think that I could manage a little of it myself if I were to try. But whenever it stands between a poor soul and Christ, I should like to say, “Break that vase into a thousand pieces, fling those flowers into the fire; we do not want them there, for we want the poor sinner to see Christ.” It is the Word of God that converts the soul; not our pretty figures about the Word; not our fine talk about it, but the Word itself. So, dear teachers, and dear brother-ministers, let us give them the Word. Yes, that is a very handsome scabbard; but, if you are going to fight, you must pull it off; and there is nothing like the naked blade, the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, to cut, and hew, and hack, and kill, in a spiritual sense; that same Word will, by God’s almighty grace, make men alive again, so we must “preach the Word” if we want to have conversions.

There is another thing that I feel I must say to you. We must not think that, in order to have conversions, it is necessary to leave out any part of the gospel. I am afraid that some people think that, if you stand and shout, “Believe, believe, believe, believe, believe, believe, believe,” you will convert any number of people; but it is not so. You must tell your hearers what they have to believe; you must give them the Word of God, the doctrines of the gospel; for the people, who are said to be converted without being taught from the Scriptures, will very soon need to be “converted” again. There must be shot and shell in our guns if any real execution is to be done; blowing off a lot of powder, and making a great noise, may sound very well for a time, but it comes to nothing in the end. Just the same gospel-adapted as to its tone and method, but the same gospel-that I preach in this place, I would preach in a thieves’ kitchen, or to the poorest of the poor, and the most illiterate of mankind. It is the gospel, and only the gospel, that will convert the soul.

Now, dear friends, you who are not converted, my closing word is to you. If you really wish for strength, life, salvation, you will get it through hearing the Word of God, or through reading this precious Book. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Eyegate is not usually the way by which Immanuel rides into the city of Mansoul. The lifting up of the host, the pretty decorations on the priest’s robe, the crucifix, the stations of the cross, and all that Romish mummery, will save nobody. That is not God’s way of salvation; but Christ comes into Mansoul through Eargate. “Incline your ear, and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live.” Whenever the gospel is preached, dear hearer, do really hear it. Remember how our Lord Jesus Christ said, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” Some people do not hear. I have often been thankful, when I have heard some people talk, that I have two ears, because, though their conversation goes in at one ear, I thank God I can let it go out of the other, and so it does me no hurt. But if you are hearing the gospel, mind that you do not act like that. Then let your two ears be two entrances for the Word. Do not have one for entrance, and the other for exit; but “let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom.” Let it go in at both ears, and remain in your memory until it reaches your heart. I do not believe that anybody is an earnest and attentive hearer, longing to hear to his soul’s profit, without his so hearing if the gospel is preached to him. As I have already told you, the promise is, “Hear, and your soul shall live;” and if you come with a willing mind,-willing to judge, and weigh, and then to believe the Word,-the moment you do believe it, you are saved. That Word of God, which leads you to believe, has already converted you; so, come out, and confess what God has done for you, and then go on your way rejoicing. May God bless every one of you, without a single exception, for his name’s sake! Amen.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-551, 658, 561.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

PSALM 19

This Psalm teaches us the excellence of the two revelations which God has made to man. The first is the revelation which he has made in nature, and the second is that which he has made in his inspired Word. The psalmist first sings of God as he displays himself in his works in creation:-

Verse 1. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

So much is this the case that it has been well said that “an undevout astronomer is mad.” There are such traces of the Infinite and the Omnipotent in the stars, and especially the more thoroughly they are studied, and the science of mathematics is brought to bear upon them, in order, in some degree, to guess at the incalculable distances and mighty weights of the starry orbs, that a man must perceive in them traces of the divine handiwork if he is only willing to do so: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.”

2. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.

Every day speaks to the following one, even as the day that went before it spoke to it, and each day has its own message. Its history is an echo of the voice of God; and if man had but ears to hear, he would perceive that the things which happen from day to day proclaim the presence and power of God. And even night, with her impressive silence, reveals the Most High in the solemn hush and stillness. In the great primeval forests, the winds seem, with songs without words, to declare the presence of the Most High. There is a something there, in the stillness of the night, so weird-like and so solemn, which has made unbelief retreat, and caused faith to lift up her eye, and see more in the heavens at night than she had seen by day: “Night unto night sheweth knowledge.”

3, 4. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

Though nature does not speak, yet its words go to the ends of the earth; and, silently, they sing the praises of God. To the inner ears of an enlightened man, there is a measure of spiritual teaching ever going on.

4-6. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

All this is emblematical of the spread of the gospel; so Paul tells us in the Epistle to the Romans: “Their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.” Our Lord Jesus, up-springing from the couch whereon he slept awhile, has sent his light even to the ends of the earth.

“Nor shall his spreading gospel rest

Till through the world his truth has run,-

Till Christ has all the nations blest,

That see the light, or feel the sun.”

There are brighter days yet to come to us. The strength of Christ, as he daily runs the gospel race, has not diminished; indeed, he puts it out yet more and more, and the day shall come when, as the full sunlight makes the perfect day, so shall the full revelation of the gospel to the eyes of all men fill the whole earth with the praises of God.

Now let us read concerning the Book of God. We have read about his works, now let us read about his words.

7. The law of the Lord is perfect,-

“The doctrine of the Lord (as it may be read,) is perfect,”-

7. Converting [or, restoring] the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure,

Oh, what a mercy that is! What could our souls do with ifs and buts, and perhapses? But the teachings of God’s Word are certain, positive, infallible.

7. Making wise the simple.

No matter how foolish, how childlike, we may be to begin with, so long as our minds are free from cunning and craftiness, and so are simple and sincere, this Book will make us truly wise.

8. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart:

You know they do. Oftentimes has your heart leaped for joy when the statutes of the Lord have been made known to you.

8-11. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them is thy servant warned:

Do you not find it so,-that, oftentimes, a text of Scripture comes to your mind just at the moment when you were about to suffer spiritual shipwreck? When you would have done something that would have caused you lifelong grief and vast damage, the Word of God has stepped before you with its flaming danger signal, and you have been stopped in time.

11. And in keeping of them there is great reward.

Not, for keeping of them, for it is not of debt; but, “in keeping of them.” It is always best to do as God bids you. You never forget a duty, or refuse to do it, without suffering loss; and every mistake you make, with regard to your Lord’s will, is a damage to yourselves. The keeping of his commands is most soul-enriching. The most profitable business that a child of God can carry on is the business of obedience to his Lord’s commands: “In keeping of them there is great reward.”

12. Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.

The man who searches his heart most will yet leave some sin undiscovered; and he who says, “I have no sin; I am living without sin,” has surely never seen into his own heart at all; he must be an utter stranger to the condition it is in. Let this be the prayer of each one of us: “Cleanse thou me from secret faults.”

13. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins;

“Let me never dare to do what I know to be wrong. Let me not say, ‘I will go just so far, and then stop.’ Let me not tempt the Holy Spirit of God. Oh, let me never tempt the devil to tempt me, and put myself into a dangerous position under the notion that God will keep me if I am his child: ‘Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins;’ ”-

13. Let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.

You will never go into apostasy if you are watchful against presumption. Those men who, like Judas, commit the great transgression, and utterly perish, are men who knew nothing about watching their own hearts, but who presumed, and were sinfully bold and self-confident, and so came to an ill end. You know where John Bunyan says Heedless and Too Bold went to; and there are many like them.

14. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.