Charles Haddon Spurgeon was the most celebrated preacher of the 19th century, serving as pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London for over 30 years. He preached to thousands weekly and his sermons were distributed around the world.
Known as the Prince of Preachers, Spurgeon held firmly to the doctrines of grace and preached a full, free gospel with extraordinary power and clarity. His works continue to edify believers to this day.
The Second Appearance of the Lord
It was an exceedingly encouraging thing to Solomon that the Lord should appear to him before the beginning of his great work of building the temple. In Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, “Ask what I shall give you.” Some of us remember how the Lord was with us at the beginning of our life-work, when we started as young men and women newly converted, full of zeal and earnestness, determined to do something for the Lord. I cannot forget when the Lord appeared unto me in Gibeon at the first. It is a priceless blessing to begin with God, and not to lay a stone of the temple of our life-work till the Lord has appeared unto us.
I do not know, however, but that it is an equal — perhaps a superior — blessing for the Lord to appear to us after a certain work is done, even as in this case: “The LORD appeared to Solomon the second time, as He had appeared unto him at Gibeon.” Solomon had now finished the temple, and he needed another visit from on high. There is great joy in completing a work, and yet there is, to some minds, a great drop, when the once engrossing service ceases to keep the mind upon the stretch.
Brethren, we need renewed appearances, fresh manifestations, new visitations from on high. While you thank God for the past, and look back with joy to His visits to you in your early days, you now seek and ask for a second visitation of the Most High. All days in a palace are not days of banqueting, and all days with God are not so clear and glorious as certain special Sabbaths of the soul in which the Lord unveils His glory. Happy are we if we have once beheld His face, but happier still if He again comes to us in fullness of favour.
I. Our Proper Place in Prayer
The Lord said, “I have heard thy prayer, and thy supplication, that thou hast made before me.” There is the place to pray — “before me,” that is to say, before the Lord. It is not always found. The Pharisee went up to the temple to pray, and yet, evidently, he did not pray “before God.” It is not because you pass these portals and come into these pews that therefore you are before God. Praying before God is a more spiritual business than is to be performed by turning to the east or to the west, or bowing the knee, or entering within walls hallowed for ages.
It is possible to pray well in public. Solomon's prayer before God was offered in the midst of a great multitude — yet he was enabled to pray before the Lord, not to please the people. Those of us who have to conduct your devotions strive hard that we may be seen of God in secret when heard of men in public, and we never pray so rightly or so usefully for you as when we only remember you in a very inferior sense, but seem to be surrounded as with a cloud, enclosed within the secret place of the Most High.
But prayer before God can just as well — perhaps more readily — be offered in private. You are in your room, where you are accustomed to pray. Do you not find yourself upon your knees repeating goodly words, while your heart is wandering? It is poor work merely to talk piously to yourself. Better far is the course prescribed in that hallowed precept: “Ye people, pour out your heart before Him” — turn it bottom upwards, let all run out before God, and so let room be left for something better and more divine.
Pray you distinctly with all your wits about you to your God. Speak to Him. Imitate David, who says, “In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.” He has fixed the arrow, drawn the bow, and taken deliberate aim — now he lets the arrow fly, and makes the centre. Oh to pray with a distinct object! Indefinite praying is a waste of breath.
II. Our Great Desideratum in Prayer
What we desire in prayer is really to be heard. If I pray, I pray not to the winds, nor to the waves, but to God, and if He does not hear me, I have lost my breath. The wise men of modern times tell us that prayer is an excellent exercise — useful and comforting — but that we are not to suppose that it has any effect upon God whatever. Brethren, it is evident that they think us idiots. If it be certain that prayer has no effect upon God, I would just as gladly whistle when I rise in the morning as pray. If there is neither hearing nor answering, we shall have reduced ourselves to the level of the worshippers of Baal.
What an honour it is to have audience with God! The frail, feeble, undeserving creature is permitted to stand in the august presence of the God of the whole earth, and the Lord regards that poor creature as if there were nothing else for Him to observe, and bends His ear and His heart to listen to that creature's cry. If I can pour my desires into His ear, and He has once observed it, all further fear is removed.
Still, there is a third thing which we want — which God gave to Solomon — and that was an answer. There are certain spiritual blessings, covenant blessings, distinctly promised, and evidently necessary, which we may ask for without any question, using a sacred persistence and refusing to let the angel go unless he blesses us. On matters promised by God in His Word we may come again and again, knocking at the Lord's door until He awakes and gives us the loaves that we seek.
III. Our Assurance of Answer to Prayer
Can we have an assurance that God has heard and answered prayer? Solomon had it. The Lord said unto him, “I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication that thou hast made before me.” I think that He says it to us very often in our usual faith. It is habitual with me to expect God to answer me. I go to Him very simply, and ask for what I want, and if I did not have that which I humbly sought for, I should be greatly surprised.
Sometimes you require strong confidence. You get to a place like that to which Jacob came — when common prayer was not sufficient. When Esau was coming to meet him with an armed force, he must have a night's prayer, he must wrestle with the angel and win the divine blessing. At such times, it is a stronger faith than usual, brought into exercise by necessity, which assures the soul of the blessing.
Faith is not believing fanatically, but believing the truth. There is a wonderful difference between believing what your fancy says, and believing what God has distinctly promised. I will believe anything, however monstrous it may appear, if God says it. I will believe nothing, however desirable, merely because my own fancy imagines it. Strong faith often brings with it a conviction within the soul which nothing can shake — a conviction most sure, and yet most reasonable, since it is inspired by the Spirit of God.
The Lord also gives to His people a manifest preparation for the blessing. God never brought you to a well and put a bucket and rope in your way, without intending to fill that bucket when you let it down. Brother, it is want of preparation in you that hinders the blessing. But when the Lord has given you an evident preparation for the blessing, the blessing is already on the way.
Throughout life it has been my habit to wait upon God about many things, and especially about extraordinary necessities which have arisen out of the demands of the great institutions committed to me. In very truth, the Lord has heard my prayers as distinctly as if He had rent the heavens and put out His right hand filled with good. The fact that the Lord has heard us in the past speaks in our souls, and fills us with the assurance that He will hear us yet again.
IV. Our Special Application of Prayer
In the case of Solomon, prayer turned in one direction. God said to him: “I have hallowed this house which thou hast built, and put my name there for ever, and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.”
We have just completed thirty-three years of ministry here — the third of a century — with unbroken blessing. We can say that all these years have passed with no division and no strife among us, with nothing but perpetual benedictions from the Lord God of our salvation. Blessed be His name! Our prayer is again that the Lord Himself would hallow this house which we have built.
We want our Lord to hallow it by His working among us in many more conversions. We shall never bring in another true convert unless we have God's presence. O Lord Jesus, we would constrain You saying, “Abide with us.”
Shall there stand here one day a man that denies the deity of my Lord? God forbid! Shall there be found here one that shall preach modern thought, and give up the old, old Gospel? God forbid! Let the house be wrapped in flames, and every ash be blown away by the winds, sooner than any shall preach from this pulpit any other Gospel than that thou hast received.
Oh, that the eye of the Lord might be upon this house, and upon this church, to watch over it, to keep it from all harm! But may His heart also be with us, to fill us with His divine life and love, and to make us know His inner self. Oh for the love of God to be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost! May we know that God's feelings of affection and delight are towards us! This shall be our joy unspeakable.
Here God my Savior reigns."