I. A gracious invitation--“Call unto Me” implies all the constituents of successful prayer.
1. Penitence.
2. Contrition.
3. Humility.
4. Importunity.
5. Restitution.
6. Faith.
II. A precious promise--“And I will answer thee.” The invitation accepted, its conditions complied with, always brings the answer.
1. God’s word pledged.
2. God’s nature pledged.
3. Confirmed by the experience of His saints.
III. A glorious revelation--“And will shew thee,” &c.
1. The greatness of God’s love.
2. The power of Jesus to forgive sin.
3. The worth of the soul.
4. The joys and comforts of religion.
5. The victory of faith in death. (J. T. Davies.)
Prayer
I. The invitation to prayer.
1. Whose is it?
2. To whom is the invitation addressed?
3. What is the tenor of the invitation?
II. The promise.
1. It is general.
2. It is special. Apply
(1) Reprove the prayerless.
(2) Encourage the prayerful. (G. Brooks.)
The golden key of prayer
God s people have always in their worst conditions found out the best of their God. Those who dive into the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls.
I. Prayer commanded.
1. This is great condescension. So great is the infatuation of man on the one hand, which makes him need a command to be merciful to his own soul, and so marvellous the condescension of God on the other that He issues a command of love.
2. Our hearts so despond over our unfitness and guilt that but for the command we might fear to approach.
3. It is remarkable how much more frequently God calls us to Him in Scripture than we find there our sinfulness denounced!
4. Nor by the commands of the Bible alone are we summoned to prayer, but by the motions of His Holy Spirit.
II. An answer promised.
1. God’s very nature, as revealed in Jesus Christ, assures us that He will accept us in prayer.
2. Our own experience leads us to believe that God will answer prayer; e.g., the conversion of many a child has been an answer to parents’ pleadings with God.
3. Yet God does not always give the thing we ask. Lord Bolingbroke said to the Countess of Huntingdon, “I cannot understand, your ladyship, how you can make out earnest prayer to be consistent with submission to the Divine will.” “My lord,” she said, “that is a matter of no difficulty. If I were a courtier of some generous king, and he gave me permission to ask any favour I pleased of him, I should be sure to put it thus: ‘Will your majesty be graciously pleased to grant me such and such a favour; but at the same time, though I much desire it, if it would in any way detract from your majesty’s honour, or if in your majesty’s judgment it should seem better that I did not have this favour, I shall be quite as content to go without it as to receive it.’ So you see I might earnestly offer a petition, and yet might submissively leave it with the king.”
III. Encouragement to faith.
1. Promised to God’s prophet, this specially applies to every teacher. The best way for a teacher or learner in Divine truth to reach the deeper things of God” is to be much in prayer. Luther says, “Bene orare est bene studuisse”--To have prayed well is to have studied well
2. The saint may expect to discover deeper experience and to know more of the higher spiritual life, by being much in prayer.
3. It is certainly true of the sufferer under trial; if he waits on God he shall have greater deliverance than he ever dreamed of (Lam_3:57).
4. Here is encouragement for the worker. We know not how much capacity for usefulness there is in us. More prayer will show us more power.
5. This should cheer us in intercession for others.
6. Some are seekers for your own conversion. Pray, and see if God will not “show you great and mighty things.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Prayer encouraged
Thetext belongs to every afflicted servant of God. It encourages him in a threefold manner.
I. To continue in prayer. “Call unto Me!”
1. Pray, though you have prayed (see Jer_32:16, &c.).
2. Pray concerning your present trouble. In Jer_32:24, the prophet mentions “the mounts” which were raised against Jerusalem, and in Jer_32:4 of this chapter the Lord answers on that very point.
3. Pray though you are still in prison after prayer. If deliverance tarries, make your prayers the more importunate.
4. Pray; for the Word of the Lord comes to you with this command.
5. Pray; for the Holy Spirit prompts you, and helps you.
II. To expect answers to prayer. “I will answer thee, and shew thee.”
1. He has appointed prayer, and made arrangements for its presentation and acceptance. He could not have meant it to be a mere farce: that were to treat us as fools.
2. He prompts, encourages, and quickens prayer; and surely He would never mock us by exciting desires which He never meant to gratify.
3. His nature is such that He must hear His children.
4. He has given His promise in the text; and it is often repeated elsewhere: He cannot lie, or deny Himself.
5. He has already answered many of His people, and ourselves also.
III. To expect great things as answers to prayer, “I will shew thee great and mighty things” We are to look for things--
1. Great in counsel; full of wisdom and significance
2. Mighty in work; revealing might, and mightily effectual.
3. Newthings to ourselves, fresh in our experience and therefore surprising. We may expect the unexpected.
4. Divine things: “I will shew thee.”
(1) Health and cure (Jer_32:6).
(2) Liberation from captivity (Jer_32:7).
(3) Forgiveness of iniquity (Jer_32:8). (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Prayer and its answer
Ayoung engineer was being examined, and this question was put to him: “Suppose you have a steam-pump constructed for a ship, under your own supervision, and know that everything is in perfect order, yet, when you throw out the hose, it will not draw; what should you think? I should think, sir, there must be a defect somewhere.” “But such a conclusion is not admissible; for the supposition is that everything is perfect, and yet that the pump will not work.” “Then, sir,” replied the student, “I should look over the side of the ship to see if the river had run dry.” Even so it would appear that if true prayer is not answered the nature of God must have changed.
Instant in prayer
SirWalter Raleigh one day asking a favour from Queen Elizabeth, the latter said to him, “Raleigh, when will you leave off begging?” To which he answered, “Whenyour Majesty leaves off giving.” Ask-great things of God. Expect great things from God. Let His past goodness make us “instant in prayer.”
Prayer the soul’s wings
Thomas Brooks, alluding to the old classical myth of Daedalus, who, being imprisoned in the island of Crete, made wings for himself, by which he escaped to Italy, says, “Christians must do as Daedalus, who, when he could not escape by a way upon earth, went by a way of heaven.” Holy prayers are the wings of the soul’s deliverance. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Calling unto God
What is this calling unto God? Is it a verbal exercise? Is it a mere act of exclamation! Nothing can be further from the meaning. It is a call that issues from the heart; it is the call of need, it is the cry of pain, it is the agony of desire, it is enclosure with God in profound and loving communion. If we have received no answers, it is because we have offered no prayers. “Ye have not because ye ask not or because ye ask amiss,” you have been praying obliquely instead of directly; you have been vexing yourselves with circumlocution when your words ought to have been direct appeals, sharp, short, urgent appeals to Heaven: to such appeals God sends down richness of dew, wealth of blessing, morning brighter than noonday. God will shew His people “great and mighty things.” There is nothing little. The bird in the heavens upon itstrembling wing is only little to us, it is not little to God. He counts the drops of dew, He puts our tears into His bottle, He numbers our sighs, and as for our groans, He distinguishes one from the other; these are not little things to Him, they are only little to our ignorance, and folly, and superficiality. God looks at souls, faces, lives, destinies, and the least child in the world He rocks to sleep and wakes in the morning, as if He had nought else to do; it is the stoop of Fatherhood, itis the mystery of the Cross. As to these continual revelations, they ought to be possible. God is infinite and eternal, man is infinite and transient in all his earthly relationships; it would he strange if God had told man everything He has to tell him, it would be the miracle of miracles that God had exhausted Himself in one effort, it would be incredible that the eternal God had crushed into the moment which we call time every thought that makes Him God. Greater things than these shall ye do; when He, the Paraclete, is come, He will guide you into all truth; grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ; add to your faith, until you scaffold yourselves up into brotherly love and charity, for from that pinnacle the next step is right into heaven. The question is, Are we in need of further revelation? Do we call for it? We may call for it speculatively, and no answer will he given; we may ask for it for the sake of mere intellectual delectation, and the heavens will be dumb and frowning: but if we try to outgrow God, then we shall know what God is in reality; He challenges the sacred rivalry, He appeals to our emulation to follow Him and study Him, and try to comprehend Him, and then how like a horizon He is, for we think we can touch Him in yonder top, but having climbed the steep the horizon is still beyond. To cleverness God has nothing to say; to vanity He is scornfully inhospitable; but to the broken heart, to the contrite spirit and the willing mind, to filial, tender, devout, obedience, He will give Himself in infinite and continual donation: To this man will I look, for I see My own image in him, My own purpose is vitalised in his experience--the man who is of a humble and contrite heart, and who trembleth at My word, not in servility, but in rapture and wonder at its grandeur and tenderness.” (J. Parker, D. D.)
God’s gracious answers to our prayers
When poor men make requests to us we usually answer them as the echo does the voice; the answer cuts off half the petition. We shall seldom find among men Jael’s courtesy, giving milk to those that ask water, except it be, as this was, an entangling benefit, the better to introduce a mischief. There are not many Naamans among us, that, when you beg of them one talent, will force you to take two; but God’s answer to our prayers is like a multiplying glass, which renders the request much greater in the answer than it was in the prayer. (J. Reynolds.)
Answers to prayer should be eagerly expected
One of the heathen poets speaks of Jupiter throwing certain prayers to the winds,--dispersing them in empty air. It is sad to think that we often do that for ourselves. What would you think of a man who had written and folded and sealed and addressed a letter, flinging it out into the street and thinking no more about it? Sailors in foundering ships sometimes commit notes in sealed bottles to the waves for the chance of them being some day washed on some shore. Sir John Franklin’s companions among the snows, and Captain Allen Gardiner dying of hunger in his cove, wrote words they could not be sure anyone would ever read. But we do not need to think of our prayers as random messages. We should therefore look for a reply to them and watch to get it. (J. Edmond.)
And shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.--
Prevailing prayer
There are different translations of these words. One version renders it, “I will shew thee great and fortified things.” Another, “Great and reserved things.” Now, there are reserved and special things in Christian experience: all the developments of spiritual life are not alike easy of attainment. There are the common frames and feelings of repentance, and faith, and joy, and hope, which are enjoyed by the entire family; but there is an upper realm of rapture, of communion, and conscious union with Christ, which is far from being the common dwelling-place of believers. We have not all the higherprivilege of John, to lean upon Jesus’ bosom; nor of Paul, to be caught up intothe third heaven. There are heights in experimental knowledge of the things of God which the eagle’s eye of acumen and philosophic thought hath never seen: God alone can bear us there; but the chariot in which He takes us up, and thefiery steeds with which that chariot is dragged, are prevailing prayers. Prevailing prayer is victorious over the God of mercy. “By his strength he had power with God: yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto Him: he found Him in Bethel, and there He spake with us.” Prevailing prayer takes the Christian to Carmel, and enables him to cover heaven with clouds of blessing, and earth with floods of mercy. Prevailing prayer bears the Christian aloft to Pisgah, and shows him the inheritance reserved; it elevates us to Tabor and transfigures us, till in the likeness of our Lord, as He is, so arewe also in this world. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
