The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

do your prayers not make you doubt? I say, honestly before you all, my own prayers often make me doubt; and I know nothing that gives me more grave cause of unrest. When I labour to pray — oh! that rascally devil! — fifty thousand thoughts he tries to inject, to take me away from prayer; and when I will and must pray, oh, what an absence there is of that burning fervent desire; and when I would desire to draw very close to God, when I would weep my very eyes out in penitence, and would believe and take the blessing, oh, what little faith and what little penitence there is! Truly, I have thought that prayer has made me more unbelieving than anything else! I could believe over the tops of my sins, but sometimes I can scarcely believe over the tops of my prayers — for oh! how cold is prayer when it is cold! Of all things that are bad when cold, I think prayer is the worst, for it becomes like a very mockery, and instead of warming the heart, it makes it colder than it was before, and seems even to dampen its life and spirit — and fills it full of doubts whether it is really an heir of heaven and accepted of Christ. Oh! look at your cold prayers, Christian, and say is not your Saviour right to ask this question very solemnly, “Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me?”

      9. But stop, again; just one more word for you to reflect upon. Perhaps you have had much prayer, and this has been a time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. But yet, maybe, you know, you have not gone as far this week as you might have done, in another exercise of godliness that is even better than prayer, — I mean communion and fellowship. Oh! beloved, you have this week had very little sitting under the apple tree, and finding its shadow great delight to you. You have not gone much this week to the banqueting house, and had its banner of love over you. Come, think to yourself, how little have you seen your Lord this week! Perhaps he has been absent the greater part of the time; and have you not groaned? have you not wept? have you not sighed after him? Surely, then, you cannot have loved him as you should, else you could not have borne his absence; you could not have endured it calmly, if you had the affection for him as a sanctified spirit should have for its Lord. You did have one sweet visit from him in the week, and why did you let him go? Why did you not constrain him to abide with you? Why did you not lay hold of the skirts of his garment, and say, “Why should you be like a wayfaring man, and as one that turns aside, and tarries for a night? Oh! my Lord, you shall dwell with me; I will keep you; I will detain you in my company; I cannot let you go; I love you, and I will constrain you to stay with me this night and the next day; as long as I can keep you, will I keep you.” But no; you were foolish; you did let him go. Oh! soul, why did you not lay hold of his arm, and say, “I will not let you go.” But you did lay hold on him so feebly, you did allow him to depart so quickly, he might have turned around, and said to you, as he said to Simon, “Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me?”

      10. Now, I have asked you all these questions, because I have been asking them of myself. I feel that I must answer to nearly every one of them, “Lord, there is great cause for me to ask myself that question”; and I think that most of you, if you are honest with yourselves, will say the same. I do not approve of the man that says, “I know I love Christ, and I never have a doubt about it”; because we often have reason to doubt ourselves; a believer’s strong faith is not a strong faith in his own love to Christ — it is a strong faith in Christ’s love to him. There is no faith which always believes that it loves Christ. Strong faith has its conflicts; and a true believer will often wrestle in the very teeth of his own feelings. Lord, if I never did love you, nevertheless, if I am not a saint, I am a sinner. Lord, I still believe; help my unbelief. The disciple can believe, when he feels no love; for he can believe that Christ loves the soul; and when he has no evidence he can come to Christ without evidence, and lay hold of him, just as he is, with naked faith, and still hold fast to him. Though he cannot see his signs, though he walk in darkness and there is no light, still may he trust in the Lord, and rest upon his God; — but to be certain at all times that we love the Lord is quite another matter; about this we have need continually to question ourselves, and most scrupulously to examine both the nature and the extent of our evidences.

      11. II. And now I come to the second thing, which is A DISCREET ANSWER. “Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me?” Simon gave a very good answer. Jesus asked him, in the first place, whether he loved him better than others. Simon would not say that: he had once been a little proud — more than a little — and thought he was better than the other disciples. But this time he evaded that question; he would not say that he loved better than others. And I am sure there is no loving heart that will think it loves even better than the least of God’s children. I believe the higher a man is in grace, the lower he will be in his own esteem; and he will be the last person to claim any supremacy over others in the divine grace of love to Jesus. But notice how Simon Peter answered: he did not answer as to the quantity but according to the quality of his love. He would affirm that he loved Christ, but not that he loved Christ better than others. “Lord, I cannot say how much I love you; but you know all things; you know that I do love you. As far I can affirm: as to the quantity of my love, I cannot say much about it.”

      12. But just notice, again, the discreet manner in which Peter answered. Some of us, if we had been asked that question, would have answered foolishly. We would have said, “Lord, I have preached for you so many times this week; Lord, I have distributed of my substance to the poor this week. Blessed be your name, you have given me grace to walk humbly, faithfully, and honestly; and therefore, Lord, I think I can say, ‘I love you.’ ” We would have brought forward our good works before our Master, as being the evidences of our love; we would have said, “Lord, you have seen me during this week; as Nehemiah did of old. Do not forget my good works. Oh Lord, I thank you; I know they are your gifts, but I think they are proofs of my love.” That would have been a very good answer if we had been questioned by our fellow man, and he had said, “You do not always love your Saviour”; but it would be foolish for us to tell the Master that. Peter’s answer was wise; “Lord, you know that I love you.” You know the Master might have said to Peter, had he appealed to his works, “Yes, you may preach, and yet not love me; you may pray, after a fashion, and yet not love me; you may do all these works, and yet have no love for me. I did not ask you what are the evidences of your love, I asked you the fact of it.” Very likely all my dear friends here would not have answered in the fashion I have supposed; but they would have said, “Love you Lord? Why, my heart is all on fire towards you; I feel as if I could go to prison and to death for you! Sometimes, when I think of you, my heart is ravished with bliss; and when you are absent, oh Lord, I moan and cry like a dove that has lost its mate. Yes, I feel I love you, oh my Christ.” But that would have been very foolish, because although we may often rejoice in our own feelings — they are joyful things — it would not do to plead them with our Lord, for he might answer, “Ah! you feel joyful at the mention of my name. So, no doubt, has many a deluded one, because he had a fictitious faith, and a fancied hope in Christ; therefore the name of Christ seemed to gladden him. You says, ‘I have felt dull when you have been absent.’ That might have been accounted for from natural circumstances; you had a headache, perhaps, or some other ailment. ‘But,’ you say, ‘I felt so happy when he was present that I thought I could die.’ ” Ah! in such a manner Peter had spoken many a time before; but a sorry mess he made of it when he trusted his feelings; for he would have sunk into the sea except for Christ; and eternally damned his soul, if it had not been for his grace, when, with cursing and swearing he thrice denied his Lord. But no, Peter was wise; he did not bring forward his thoughts and feelings, nor did he bring his evidences: though they were good in themselves, he did not bring them before Christ. But, as though he shall say, “Lord, I appeal to your omnipotence. I am not going to tell you that the volume of my heart must contain such-and-such matter, because there is such-and-such a mark on its cover; for, Lord, you can read inside of it; and, therefore I need not tell you what the title is, nor read over to you the index of the content; Lord, you know that I love you.”

      13. Now, could we, this morning, dear friends, give such an answer as that to the question? If Christ should come here, if he were now to walk down these aisles, and along the pews, could we appeal to his own divine Omniscience, his infallible knowledge of our hearts, that we all love him? There is a test point between a hypocrite and a real Christian. If you are a hypocrite, you might say, “Lord, my minister knows that I love you; Lord, the deacons know that I love you; they think I do, for they