Sermon Tone Analysis

“Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.”—Jeremiah

33:3.

SOME of the most learned works in the world smell of the midnight oil; but the most spiritual, and most comforting books and sayings of men usually have a savour about them of prison-damp.

I might quote many instances: John Bunyan’s Pilgrim may suffice instead of a hundred others; and this good text of ours, all mouldy and chill with the prison in which Jeremiah lay, hath nevertheless a brightness and a beauty about it, which it might never have had if it had not come as a cheering word to the prisoner of the Lord, shut up in the court of the prison-house.

God’s people have always in their worst condition found out the best of their God.

He is good at all times; but he seemeth to be at his best when they are at their worst.

“How could you bear your long imprisonment so well?” said one to the Landgrave of Hesse, who had been shut up for his attachment to the principles of the Reformation.

He replied “The divine consolations of martyrs were with me.”

Doubtless there is a consolation more deep, more strong than any other, which God keeps for those who, being his faithful witnesses, have to endure exceeding great tribulation from the enmity of man.

There is a glorious aurora for the frigid zone; and stars glisten in northern skies with unusual splendour.

Rutherford had a quaint saying, that when he was cast into the cellars of affliction, he remembered that the great King always kept his wine there, and he began to seek at once for the wine-bottles, and to drink of the “wines on the lees well refined.”

They who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls.

You know, my companions in affliction, that it is so.

You whose bones have been ready to come through the skin through long lying upon the weary couch; you who have seen your earthly goods carried away from you, and have been reduced well nigh to penury; you who have gone to the grave yet seven times, till you have feared that your last earthly friend would be borne away by unpitying Death; you have proved that he is a faithful God, and that as your tribulations abound, so your consolations also abound by Christ Jesus.

My prayer is, in taking this text this morning, that some other prisoners of the Lord may have its joyous promise spoken home to them; that you who are straitly shut up and cannot come forth by reason of present heaviness of spirit, may hear him say, as with a soft whisper in your ears, and in your hearts, “Call upon me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.”

The text naturally splits itself up into three distinct particles of truth.

Upon these let us speak as we are enabled by God the Holy Spirit.

First, prayer commanded—“Call unto me;” secondly, an answer promised—“And I will answer thee;” thirdly, faith encouraged—“And shew thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.”

I.

The first head is PRAYER COMMANDED.

We are not merely counselled and recommended to pray, but bidden to pray.

This is great condescension.

An hospital is built: it is considered sufficient that free admission shall be given to the sick when they seek it; but no order in council is made that a man must enter its gates.

A soup kitchen is well provided for in the depth of winter.

Notice is promulgated that those who are poor may receive food on application; but no one thinks of passing an Act of Parliament, compelling the poor to come and wait at the door to take the charity.

It is thought to be enough to proffer it without issuing any sort of mandate that men shall accept it.

Yet so strange 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 is the condescension of our gracious God on the other, that he issues a command of love without which not a man of Adam born would partake of the gospel feast, but would rather starve than come.

In the matter of prayer it is even so.

God’s own people need, or else they would not receive it, a command to pray.

How is this?

Because, dear friends, we are very subject to fits of worldliness, if indeed that be not our usual state.

We do not forget to eat: we do not forget to take the shop shutters down: we do not forget to be diligent in business: we do not forget to go to our beds to rest: but we often do forget to wrestle with God in prayer, and to spend, as we ought to spend, long periods in consecrated fellowship with our Father and our God.

With too many professors the ledger is so bulky that you cannot move it, and the Bible, representing their devotion, is so small that you might almost put it in your waistcoat pocket.

Hours for the world!

Moments for Christ!

The world has the best, and our closet the parings of our time.

We give our strength and freshness to the ways of mammon, and our fatigue and languor to the ways of God.

Hence it is that we need to be commanded to attend to that very act which it ought to be our greatest happiness, as it is our highest privilege to perform, viz. to meet with our God.

“Call upon me,” saith he, for he knows that we are apt to forget to call upon God.

“What meanest thou, oh, sleeper?

arise and call upon thy God,” is an exhortation which is needed by us as well as by Jonah in the storm.

He understands what heavy hearts we have sometimes, when under a sense of sin.

Satan says to us, “Why should you pray?

How can you hope to prevail?

In vain, thou sayest, I will arise and go to my Father, for thou art not worthy to be one of his hired servants.

How canst thou see the king’s face after thou hast played the traitor against him?

How wilt thou dare to approach unto the altar when thou hast thyself defiled it, and when the sacrifice which thou wouldst bring there is a poor polluted one?”

O brethren, it is well for us that we are commanded to pray, or else in times of heaviness we might give it up.

If God command me, unfit as I may be, I will creep to the footstool of grace; and since he says, “Pray without ceasing,” though my words fail me and my heart itself will wander, yet I will still stammer out the wishes of my hungering soul and say, “O God, at least teach me to pray and help me to prevail with thee.”

Are we not commanded to pray also because of our frequent unbelief?

Unbelief whispers, “What profit is there if thou shouldst seek the Lord upon such-and-such a matter?”

This is a case quite out of the list of those things wherein God hath interposed, and, therefore (saith the devil), if you were in any other position you might rest upon the mighty arm of God; but here your prayer will not avail you.

Either it is too trivial a matter, or it is too connected with temporals, or else it is a matter in which you have sinned too much, or else it is too high, too hard, too complicated a piece of business, you have no right to take that before God!

So suggests the foul fiend of hell.

Therefore, there stands written as an every-day precept suitable to every case into which a Christian can be cast, “Call unto me—call unto me.”

Art thou sick?

Wouldst thou be healed?

Cry unto me, for I am a Great Physician.

Does providence trouble thee?

Art thou fearful that thou shalt not provide things honest in the sight of man?

Call unto me!

Do thy children vex thee?

Dost thou feel that which is sharper than an adder’s tooth—a thankless child?

Call unto me.

Are thy griefs little yet painful, like small points and pricks of thorns?

Call unto me!

Is thy burden heavy as though it would make thy back break beneath its load?

Call unto me! “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee; he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.”

In the valley—on the mountain—on the barren rock—in the briny sea, submerged, anon, beneath the billows, and lifted up by-and-by upon the crest of the waves—in the furnace when the coals are glowing—in the gates of death when the jaws of hell would shut themselves upon thee—cease thou not, for the commandment evermore addresses thee with “Call unto me.”

Still prayer is mighty and must prevail with God to bring thee thy deliverance.

These are some of the reasons why the privilege of supplication is also in Holy Scripture spoken of as a duty: there are many more, but these will suffice this morning.

We must not leave our first part till we have made another remark.

We ought to be very glad that God hath given us this command in his word that it may be sure and abiding.

You may turn to fifty passages where the same precept is uttered.

I do not often read in Scripture, “Thou shalt not kill;” “Thou shalt not covet.”

Twice the law is given, but I often read gospel precepts, for if the law be given twice, the gospel is given seventy times seven.

For every precept which I cannot keep, by reason of my being weak through the flesh, I find a thousand precepts, which it is sweet and pleasant for me to keep, by reason of the power of the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in the children of God; and this command to pray is insisted upon again and again.

It may be a seasonable exercise for some of you to find out how often in scripture you are told to pray.

You will be surprised to find how many times such words as these are given; “Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee”—“Ye people, pour out your heart before him.”

“Seek ye the Lord while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near.”

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you”—“Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation”—“Pray without ceasing”—“Come boldly unto the throne of grace,” “Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you.” “Continue in prayer.”

I need not multiply where I could not possibly exhaust.

I pick two or three out of this great bag of pearls.

Come, Christian, you ought never to question whether you have a right to pray: you should never ask, “May I be permitted to come into his presence?”

When you have so many commands, (and God’s commands are all promises, and all enablings,) you may come boldly unto the throne of heavenly grace, by the new and living way through the rent veil.

But there are times when God not only commands his people to pray in the Bible, but he also commands them to pray directly by the motions of his Holy Spirit.

You who know the inner life comprehend me at once.

You feel on a sudden, possibly in the midst of business, the pressing thought that you must retire to pray.

It may be, you do not at first take particular notice of the inclination, but it comes again, and again, and again—“Retire and pray!”

I find that in the matter of prayer, I am myself very much like a water-wheel which runs well when there is plenty of water, but which turns with very little force when the brook is growing shallow; or, like the ship which flies over the waves, putting Out all her canvas when the wind is favourable, but which has to tack about most laboriously when there is but little of the favouring breeze.

Now, it strikes me that whenever our Lord gives you the special inclination to pray, that you should double your diligence.

You ought always to pray and not to faint; yet when he gives you the special longing after prayer, and you feel a peculiar aptness and enjoyment in it, you have, over and above the command which is constantly binding, another command which should compel you to cheerful obedience.

At such times I think we may stand in the position of David, to whom the Lord said, “When thou hearest a sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, then “halt thou bestir thyself.”

That going in the tops of the mulberry trees may have been the footfalls of angels hastening to the help of David, and then David was to smite the Philistines, and when God’s mercies are coming, their footfalls are our desires to pray; and our desires to pray should be at once an indication that the set time to favour Zion is come.

Sow plentifully now, for thou canst sow in hope; plough joyously now, for thy harvest is sure.

Wrestle now, Jacob, for thou art about to be made a prevailing prince, and thy name shall be called Israel.

Now is thy time, spiritual merchantmen; the market is high, trade much; thy profit shall be large.

See to it that thou usest right well the golden hour, and reap thy harvest while the sun shines.

When we enjoy visitations from on high, we should be peculiarly constant in prayer; and if some’ other duty less pressing should have the go-bye for a season, it will not be amiss and we shall be no loser; for when God bids us specially pray by the monitions of his Spirit, then should we bestir ourselves in prayer.

II.

Let us now take the second head—AN ANSWER PROMISED.