The Spurgeon Series 1855 & 1856. Charles H. Spurgeon

away this morning. I regret that I cannot better enter into the subject; but my glorious Master requires of each of us according to what we have, not according to what we have not. I am deeply conscious that I fail in urging home the truth as solemnly as I ought; nevertheless, “my work is with God and my judgment with my God,” and the last day shall reveal that my error lay in judgment, but not in sincere affection for souls.

      15. First, allow me to address the children of God. Do you not see, my dear brethren, that the best sign of our being sons of God is to be found in our devotion? “Behold, he prays.” Well then, does it not follow, as a natural consequence that the more we are found in prayer the brighter will our evidences be? Perhaps you have lost your evidence this morning; you do not know whether you are a child of God or not; I will tell you where you lost your confidence — you lost it in your closet. Whenever a Christian backslides, his wandering commences in his closet. I speak what I have felt. I have often gone back from God — never so as to fall finally, I know, but I have often lost that sweet savour of his love which I once enjoyed. I have had to cry,

      Those peaceful hours I once enjoyed.

      How sweet their memory still!

      But they have left an aching void!

      The world can never fill.

      I have gone up to God’s house to preach, without either fire or energy; I have read the Bible, and there has been no light upon it, I have tried to have communion with God, but all has been a failure. Shall I tell where that commenced? It commenced in my closet. I had ceased, in a measure, to pray. Here I stand, and do confess my faults; I do acknowledge that whenever I depart from God it is there it does begin. Oh Christians, would you be happy? Be much in prayer. Would you be victorious? Be much in prayer.

      Restraining prayer, we cease to fight;

      Prayer makes the Christian’s armour bright.

      Mrs. Berry used to say, “I would not be hired out of my closet for a thousand worlds.” Mr. Jay said, “If the twelve apostles were living near you, and you had access to them, if this intercourse drew you from the closet, they would prove a real injury to your souls.” Prayer is the ship which brings home the richest freight. It is the soil which yields the most abundant harvest. Brother, when you rise in the morning your business so presses, that with a hurried word or two, down you go into the world, and at night, jaded and tired, you give God the fag-end of the day. The consequence is, that you have no communion with him. The reason we have not more true religion now, is because we do not have more prayer. Sirs, I have no opinion of the churches of the present day that do not pray. I go from chapel to chapel in this metropolis, and I see pretty sizeable congregations; but I go to their prayer meetings on a weekday evening, and I see a dozen people. Can God bless us? Can he pour out his Spirit upon us, while such things as these exist? He could, but it would not be according to the order of his dispensation, for he says, “When Zion travails she brings forth children.” Go to your churches and chapels with this thought, that you need more prayer. Many of you have no business here this morning. You ought to be in your own places of worship. I do not want to steal away the people from other chapels; there are enough to hear me without them. But though you have sinned this morning, hear while you are here, as much to your profit as possible. Go home and say to your minister, “Sir, we must have more prayer.” Urge the people to more prayer. Have a prayer meeting, even if you have it all to yourself; and if you are asked how many were present, you can say “Four.” “Four! how so?” “Why, there was myself, and God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; and we have had a rich and real communion together.” We must have an outpouring of real devotion or else what is to become of many of our churches. Oh! may God awaken us all, and stir us up to pray, for when we pray we shall be victorious. I would like to take you, this morning, as Samson did the foxes, tie the firebrands of prayer to you, and send you in among the shocks of grain until you burn the whole up. I should like to make a conflagration by my words, and to set all the churches on fire until the whole has smoked like a sacrifice to God’s throne. If you pray, you have a proof that you are a Christian; the less you pray, the less reason have you to believe your Christianity; and if you have neglected to pray altogether, then you have ceased to breathe, and you may be afraid that you never did breathe at all.

      16. And now my last word is to the ungodly. Oh, sirs! I could fain wish myself anywhere but here; for if it is solemn work to address the godly, how much more when I come to deal with you. We fear lest on the one hand we should so speak to you, as to make you trust in your own strength; while on the other hand, we tremble lest we should lull you into the sleep of sloth and security. I believe most of us feel some difficulty as to the most fit manner to preach to you — not that we doubt that only the gospel is to be preached — but our desire is so to do it, that we may win your souls. I feel like a watchman, who, while guarding a city, is oppressed with sleep; how earnestly does he strive to arouse himself, while infirmity would overcome him. The remembrance of his responsibility bestirs him. His has no lack of will, but of power; and so I hope all the watchmen of the Lord are anxious to be faithful, while at the same time they know their imperfection. Truly the minister of Christ will feel like the old keeper of Eddystone lighthouse; life was failing fast, but summoning all his strength, he crept around once more to trim the lights before he died. Oh may the Holy Spirit enable us to keep the beacon fire blazing, to warn you of the rocks, shoals, and quicksands, which surround you and may we ever guide you to Jesus, and not to free will or creature merit. If my friends knew how anxiously I have sought divine direction in the important matter of preaching to sinners, they would not feel as some of them do, when they fancy I address them wrongly. I want to do as God bids me, and if he tells me to speak to the dry bones and they shall live, I must do it, even if it does not please others; otherwise I would be condemned in my own conscience, and condemned of God. Now with all the solemnity that man can summon, let me say that a prayerless soul is a Christless soul. As the Lord lives, you who never prayed are without God, without hope, and strangers from the commonwealth of Israel. You who never know what a groan is, or a falling tear, are destitute of vital godliness. Let me ask you, sirs, whether you have ever thought in what an awful state you are? You are far from God, and therefore God is angry with you; for “God is angry with the wicked every day.” Oh sinner! lift your eyes, and behold the frowning countenance of God, for he is angry with you. And I beseech you, as you love yourselves, just for one moment contemplate what will become of you, if living as you are you should at last die without prayer. Do not think that one prayer on your deathbed will save you. Deathbed prayer is a deathbed farce generally, and passes for nothing. It is a coin that will not ring in heaven but is stamped by hypocrisy, and made of base metal. Take heed, sirs. Let me ask you, if you have never prayed, what will you do? It would be a good thing for you, if death were an eternal sleep; but it is not. If you find yourself in hell, oh, the racks and pains! But I will not harrow up your feelings by attempting to describe them. May God grant you never may feel the torments of the lost. Only conceive that poor wretch in the flames who is saying, “Oh for one drop of water to cool my parched tongue!” See how his tongue hangs from between his blistered lips! how it excoriates and burns the roof of his mouth, as if it were a firebrand. Behold him crying for a drop of water. I will not picture the scene. Suffice it for me to close up by saying, that the hell of hells will be to you poor sinner, the thought, that it is to be for ever. You will look up there on the throne of God, and it shall be written “for ever!” When the damned jingle the burning irons of their torments, they shall say, “for ever!” When they howl, echo cries “for ever!”

      For ever’s written on their racks,

      “For ever” on their chains;

      “For ever” burns in the fire,

      “For ever” ever reigns.

      17. Doleful thought! “If I could only get out, then I would be happy. If there were a hope of deliverance, then I might be peaceful; but I am here for ever!” Sirs, if you would escape eternal torments, if you would be found among the numbers of the blessed, the road to heaven can only be found by prayer — by prayer to Jesus, by prayer for the Spirit, by supplication at his mercy seat. “Turn you, turn you, why will you die, oh house of Israel. As I live says the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him