Spurgeon - The Pastor in Prayer

The

Pastor in Prayer

being a choice selection of

C. H. Spurgeons

Sunday Morning Prayers

A man of faith and prayer, is an apt description of the late Pastor of the Tabernacle.

His faith was responsive to the Divine call and obedient to the Divine command: it grasped the promises of God and proved the secret of his strength for service and endurance.

Familiar with the mercy-seat, he sought for heavenly guidance and found in the exercise of prayer a well-spring of joy, and the inspiration for his ministry. Things not seen and eternal ever lay within the range of his souls vision, and he lived as one who had business with eternity.

Mr. D. L. Moody in commencing his first address in the Tabernacle, October 9th, 1892, pathetically recalled the time when he first entered the building, twenty-five years ago. He had come four thousand miles to hear Mr. Spurgeon. What impressed him most was not the praise, though he thought he had never heard such grand congregational singing; it was not Mr. Spurgeons exposition, fine though it was, nor even his sermon; it was his prayer. He seemed to have such access to God that he could bring down the power from heaven; that was the great secret of his influence and his success.

The following selection of Mr. Spurgeons Sunday morning prayers, reported verbatim, will be welcomed as a precious memorial of a life and ministry by which God was honoured, souls saved, believers edified, and workers together with God were encouraged in all holy service. They will furnish stimulus for the preacher in the pulpit and aids to devotion to saints in solitude.

The sermons to which the prayers were preludes, are published in the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit: the hymns are contained in Our Own Hymn Book.

to which The Prayers were Preludes

POETRY

If I touch but his garments, I shall be made whole.Mark 5:28

O LORD GOD, the great I AM, we do confess and cheerfully acknowledge that all come of Thee. Thou hast made us and not we ourselves, and the breath in our nostrils is kept there by Thy continued power. We owe our sustenance, our happiness, our advancement, our ripening, our very existence entirely unto Thee. We would bless Thee for all the mercies with which Thou dost surround us, for all things which our eyes see that are pleasant, which our ears hear that are agreeable, and for everything that maketh existence to be life. Especially do we own this dependence when we come to deal with spiritual things. O God, we are less than nothing in the spiritual world. We do feel this growingly, and yet even to feel this is beyond our power. Thy grace must give us even to know our need of grace. We are not willing to confess our own sinfulness until Thou dost show it to us. Though it stares us in the face, our pride denies it, and our own inability is unperceived by us. We steal Thy power and call it our own till Thou dost compel us to say that we have no strength in ourselves. Now, Lord, would we acknowledge that all good must come of Thee, through Jesus Christ by Thy Spirit, if ever we are to receive it. And we come humbly, first of all acknowledging our many sins. How many they are we cannot calculate, how black they are, how deep their ill-desert; yet we do confess that we have sinned ourselves into hopeless misery, unless Thy free undeserved grace do rescue us from it. Lord, we thank Thee for any signs of penitencegive us more of it. Lay us low before Thee under a consciousness of our undeserving state. Let us feel and mourn the atrocity of our guilt. O God, we know a tender heart must come from Thyself. By nature our hearts are stony, and we are proud and self-righteous.

Help everyone here to make an acceptable confession of sin, with much mourning, with much deep regret, with much self-loathing, and with the absence of anything like a pretence to merit or to excuse. Here we stand, Lord, a company of publicans and sinners, with whom Jesus deigns to sit down. Heal us, Emanuel! Here we are, needing that healing. Good Physician, here is scope for Thee; come and manifest Thy healing power! There are many of us who have looked unto Jesus and are lightened, but we do confess that our faith was the gift of God. We had never looked with these blear eyes of ours to that dear cross, unless first the heavenly light had shone, and the heavenly finger had taken the thick scales away. We trace therefore our faith to that same God who gave us life, and we ask now that we may have more of it. Lord, maintain the faith Thou hast created; strengthen it, let it be more and more simple. Deliver us from any sort of reliance upon ourselves, whatever shape that reliance might take, and let our faith in Thee become more childlike every day that we live; for, O dear Saviour, there is room for the greatest faith to be exercised upon Thy blessed person and work. O God, the Most High and All-sufficient, there is room for the greatest confidence in Thee. O Divine Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, there is now sufficient room for the fullest faith in Thine operations. Grant us this faith. Oh, work it in us now, while, at the same time, we do confess that if we have it not, it is our shame and sin. We make no excuse for unbelief, but confess it with detestation of it, that we should ever have doubted the truthful, the mighty, the faithful God. Yet, Lord, we shall fall into the like sin again, unless the grace that makes us know it to be sin shall help us to avoid it.

And now, Lord, we ask thee to accept of us this morning whatever offerings we can bring. We bring our hearts to Thee, full of love to Thee for what Thou hast done; full of gratitude, full of faith, full of hope, full of joy. We feel glad in the Lord. But we do confess that if there be anything acceptable in these our offerings, they are all first given us of Thee. No praise comes from us till first it is wrought in us, for

Every virtue we possess,

And every victory won;

And every thought of holiness,

Are Thine, great God, alone.

Well may we lay those fruits at Thy feet that were grown in Thy garden, and that gold and silver and frankincense which Thou Thyself didst bestow: only first give us more! Oh, to love the Saviour with a passion that can never cool! Oh, to believe in God with a confidence that can never stagger! Oh, to hope in God with an expectation that can never be dim! Oh, to delight in God with a holy overflowing rejoicing that can never be stopped; so that we might live to glorify God at the highest bent of our powers, living with enthusiasmburning, blazing, being consumed with the indwelling God who worketh all things in us according to His will! Thus, Lord, would we praise and pray at the same time; confess and acknowledge our responsibilities; but also bless the free, the sovereign grace that makes us what we are. O God of the eternal choice, O God of the ransom purchased on the tree, O God of the effectual call, Father, Son and Spirit, our adoration rises to heaven like the smoke from the altar of incense. Glory and honour and majesty and power and dominion and might be unto the one only God, for ever and ever, and all the redeemed by blood will say, Amen.

Look, at this time, we beseech Thee, upon us as a church, and give us greater prosperity. Add to us daily. Knit and unite us together in love. Pardon church sins. Have mercy upon us that we do not more for thee. Accept what we are enabled to do. Qualify each one of us to be vessels fit for the Masters use; then use each one of us according to the measure of our capacity. Wilt Thou be pleased to bless the various works carried on by the church; may they all prosper. Let our Sabbath School especially be visited with the dew of heaven, and the Schools that belong to us and are situated a little distance, may they also have an abundant shower from the Lord; and may all the Sabbath Schools throughout the world be richly refreshed, and bring forth a great harvest for God.