The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

see him they know that the king comes, because the trumpeter is there. But, perhaps, there is before him a more important personage, who says, “I am sent before the king to prepare for his reception, and I am this day to receive anything that you have to send to the king, for I am his representative.” So prayer is the representative of the blessing before the blessing comes. The prayer comes, and when I see the prayer, I say, “Prayer, you are the viceregent of the blessing; if the blessing is the king, you are the regent. I know and look upon you as being the representative of the blessing I am about to receive.”

      11. But I do think also that sometimes, and generally, prayer goes before the blessing, even as the cause goes before the effect. Some people say, when they receive anything, that they receive it because they prayed for it; but if they are people who are not spiritually minded, and who have no faith, let them know, that whatever they may receive it is not in answer to prayer; for we know that God does not hear sinners, and “the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.” “Well,” one says, “I asked God for such-and-such a thing the other day; I know I am not a Christian, but I received it. Do not you consider that I had it through my prayers?” No, sir, no more than I believe the reasoning of the old man who affirmed that the Goodwin Sands {a} had been caused by the building of Tenterden steeple, {b} for the sands had not been there before, and the sea did not come up until it was built, and therefore, he said, the steeple must have caused the flood. Now, your prayers have no more connection with your blessing than the sea with the steeple; in the Christian’s case it is far different. Often the blessing is actually brought down from heaven by the prayer. An objector may reply, “I believe that prayer may have much influence on yourself, sir, but I do not believe that it has any effect on the Divine Being.” Well, sir, I shall not try to convince you; because it is useless for me to try to convince you of that, unless you believe the testimonies I bring, as it would be to convince you of any historical fact by simply reasoning about it. I could bring out of this congregation not one, nor twenty, but many hundreds, who are rational, intelligent people, and who would, each of them, most positively declare, that some hundreds of times in their lives they have been led to seek most earnestly deliverance out of trouble, or help in adversity, and they have received the answers to their prayers in so marvellous a manner that they themselves did no more doubt their being answers to their cries than they could doubt the existence of a God. They felt sure that he heard them; they were certain of it. Oh! the testimonies to the power of prayer are so numberless, that the man who rejects them flies in the face of good testimonies. We are not all enthusiasts; some of us are cool blooded enough; we are not all fanatics; we are not all quite wild in our piety; some of us in other things, we reckon, act in a tolerably common sense way. But yet we all agree in this, that our prayers have been heard; and we could tell many stories of our prayers, still fresh upon our memories, where we have cried to God, and he has heard us. But the man, who he says does not believe God hears prayer, knows he does. I have no respect to his scepticism, any more than I have any respect to a man’s doubt about the existence of a God. The man does not doubt it; he has to choke his own conscience before he dares to say he does. It is complimenting him too much to argue with him. Will you argue with a liar? He affirms a lie, and knows it is so. Will you condescend to argue with him, to prove that he is untrue? The man is incapable of reasoning; he is beyond the pale of those who ought to be treated as respectable people. If a man rejects the existence of a God, he does it desperately against his own conscience; and if he is bad enough to stifle his own conscience so much as to believe that, or pretend that he believes it, we think we shall demean ourselves if we argue with so loose a character. He must be solemnly warned, for reason is thrown away upon deliberate liars. But you know, sir, God hears prayer; because if you do not, either way you must be a fool. You are a fool for not believing so, and a worse fool for praying yourself, when you do not believe he hears you. “But I do not pray sir.” Do not pray? Did I not hear a whisper from your nurse when you were sick? She said you were a wonderful saint when you had the fever. You do not pray! No, but when things do not go quite well in business you wish that they would go better, and you do sometimes cry out to God a kind of prayer which he cannot accept, but which is still enough to show that there is an instinct in man that teaches him to pray, I believe that even as birds build their nests without any teaching, so men use prayer in the form of it (I do not mean spiritual prayer): I say, men use prayer from the very instinct of nature. There is something in man which makes him a praying animal. He cannot help it; he is obliged to do it. He laughs at himself when he is on the dry land; but he prays when he is on the sea and in a storm; he scoffs at prayer when he is well, but when he is sick he prays as fast as anyone. He — he would not pray when he is rich; but when he is poor, he prays then strongly enough. He knows God hears prayer, and he knows that men should pray. There is no disputing with him. If he dares to deny his own conscience he is incapable of reasoning, he is beyond the pale of morality, and therefore we dare not try to influence him by reasoning. Other means we may and hope we shall use with him, but not what compliments him by allowing him to answer. Oh saints of God! whatever you can give up, you can never give up this truth, that God hears prayer; for if you did not believe it today, you would have to believe it again tomorrow; for you would have another proof of it through some other trouble that would roll over your head that you would be obliged to feel, if you were not obliged to say, “Truly, God hears and answers prayer.”

      12. Prayer, then, is the prelude of mercy, for very often it is the cause of the blessing; that is to say, it is a part cause; the mercy of God being the great first cause, prayer is often the secondary agency by which the blessing is brought down.

      13. II. And now I am going to try to show you, in the second place, WHY IT IS THAT GOD IS PLEASED TO MAKE PRAYER THE TRUMPETER OF MERCY, OR THE FORERUNNER OF IT.

      14. 1. I think it is, in the first place, because God loves that man would have some reason for having a connection with him. God says, “My creatures will shun me, even my own people will seek me too little — they will flee from me, instead of coming to me. What shall I do? I intend to bless them: shall I lay the blessings at their doors, so that when they open them in the morning they may find them there, unasked and unsought for?” “Yes,” God says, “I will do that with many mercies; I will give them much that they need, without their seeking for it; but in order that they may not wholly forget me, there are some mercies that I will not put at their doors, but I will make them come to my house after them. I love my children to visit me,” says the heavenly Father; “I love to see them in my courts, I delight to hear their voices and to see their faces; they will not come to see me if I give them all they want; I will keep them sometimes in need, and then they will come to me and ask, and I shall have the pleasure of seeing them, and they will have the profit of entering into fellowship with me.” It is as if some father should say to his son, who is entirely dependent upon him, “I might give you a fortune at once, so that you might never have to come to me again; but, my son, it delights me, it affords me pleasure to supply your needs. I like to know what it is you require, that I may oftentimes have to give something to you, and so may frequently see your face. Now I shall give you only enough to serve you for such a time, and if you want to have anything you must come to my house for it. Oh, my son, I do this because I desire to see you often; I desire often to have opportunities of showing how much I love you.” So does God say to his children, “I do not give you all at once; I give all to you in the promise, but if you want to have it in the detail, you must come to me to ask me for it: so you shall see my face, and so you shall have a reason for often coming to my feet.”

      15. 2. But there is another reason. God would make prayer the preface to mercy, because often prayer itself gives the mercy. You are full of fear and sorrow; you need comfort, God says, pray, and you shall receive it; and the reason is because prayer is of itself a comforting exercise. We are all aware, that when we have any heavy news upon our minds, it often relieves us if we can tell a friend about it. Now there are some troubles we would not tell to others, for perhaps many minds could not sympathize with us: God has therefore provided prayer, as a channel for the flow of grief. “Come,” he says, “your troubles may find vent here; come, put them into my ear; pour out your heart before me, and so will you prevent its bursting. If you must weep, come and weep at my mercy seat; if you must cry, come and cry in the closet, and I will