Part 37
As for you who know Him not, I pray you to trust in the Sacrifice
of His dear Son, Jesus Christ. As the doves hide themselves in the
clefts of the rock, hide yourselves in the wounds of Jesus by
trusting in His atoning Sacrifice. And as for you, the saints of the
Lord, return unto your rest for the Lord has dealt bountifully with
you, therefore, "rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him,"
remembering that "they who wait upon the Lord shall renew their
strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run,
and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint." May the Lord
graciously give all of us His blessing and benediction, for Jesus
Christ's sake! Amen.
Ge 32:10 • Humility the Friend of Prayer
ERMON 1787
Humility, The Friend Of Prayer
"I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the
truth which You have showed unto Your servant, for with my staff I
passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands."
Genesis 32:10
JACOB'S character was far from faultless, but equally removed
from despicable. He possessed great strength of character and force
of judgment, but this became somewhat of a snare to him, so that
he did not always move through life with the childlike repose of
Isaac, or the royal serenity of Abraham, but was, at times, crafty
and critical like his relatives on his mother's side. Yet I object to
that depreciation of Jacob's character which is so common in
certain quarters because he used the means, as well as prayed. Our
God is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob–and, very
frequently, He is called the God of Israel–and even the God of
Jacob. "He is not ashamed to be called their God." And if He is not
ashamed to be called Jacob's God, no fellow Believer has any right
to be ashamed of Jacob! With all his imperfections–and he
certainly had them–he was a noble man.
Some good people are built upon too small a scale to display
either good or bad qualities in any high degree–let not such quibble
at a great man like Jacob! He has impressed his character upon
multitudinous generations and a whole nation bears his lineaments.
He was a man full of energy, active, enduring, resolute and,
therefore, his infirmities became more conspicuous than they
would have been in a quieter and more restful nature. Say what you
will of him, he was a master of the art of prayer–and he that can
pray well is a princely man! He that can prevail with God will
certainly prevail with men! It seems to me that when once a man is
taught of the Lord to pray, he is equal to every emergency that can
possibly arise. Depend upon it, it will go hard with any man who
fights against a man of prayer! All other weapons may be dashed
aside, but the weapon of All-Prayer, invisible though it may be, and
despised of the worldling, has in it a might and majesty which will
secure the victory! The sword of prayer has such an edge that it
will cut through coats of mail. Jacob was a prevailing prince when
he was on his knees.
Dr. Ditto, in his admirable, Bible Illustrations, has a chapter upon
this chapter which is entitled, "The First Prayer." I take leave to
differ a little from that title. This can hardly be said to be the first
prayer that is recorded in Scripture. I admit that the excellent writer
excludes the prayer of Abraham for Sodom as rather an
intercession than a prayer, but there are other prayers of Abraham
and other instances of supplication. Yet it may be truly said that this
is the first prayer in the Bible of a man for himself which is given
at full length. And, being the first, it may be viewed in some degree
as a pattern for succeeding pleaders.
If you examine it carefully, you will find that it is a valuable
model which may be copied by any child of God in the day of his
trouble. Jacob begins by pleading the Covenant–"O God of my
father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac"–what better plea can
we have than the Covenant of a faithful God which He has already
fulfilled to our fathers? He next pleads a special promise which had
been made to himself. That promise was wrapped up in the folds of
a precept which he was obeying–"You said unto me, return unto
your country, and to your kindred, and I will deal well with you."
While we plead the general Covenant made with all believers in
Christ, we may also particularly and especially plead any promise
which has been laid home to our own soul by the Spirit of the
blessed God.
Next, he proceeded to plead his own unworthiness. By faith he
turned even his faultiness into an argument, as I shall have to show
you–"I am not worthy of the least of all Your mercies."
Furthermore, he went on to plead with God, stating his special
danger–"Deliver me, I pray You, from the hand of my brother, from
the hand of Esau." He also set the little children and their danger
before God–a strong plea with such a God of Love as we
have–"Less he will come and smite me and the mother with the
children." Then he concluded with what must always remain a
potent plea with God–"You said." He urged God's promise and
virtually cried, "Do as You have said." It is wise to spread the
promise before Him who gave it and to beg for its fulfillment! We
may appeal to God's faithfulness, and cry, "Remember the words
unto Your servant, upon which You have caused me to hope."
The very first sentence of Jacob's prayer has this peculiarity about
it, that it is steeped in humility, for he does not address the Lord as
his own God at the first, but as the God of Abraham and Isaac. The
prayer itself, though it is very urgent, is never presumptuous. It is
as lowly as it is earnest! I take it that even when Jacob, in his
desperation, grasped the Angel and said, "I will not let You go,
except You bless me," there was no undue familiarity in his holy
boldness. There was an extraordinary courage and an invincible
determination–but it was of the kind which God approves–
otherwise He would not have blessed him there. No man wins a
blessing through a sinful act towards God!
Throughout this prayer I see, with all its intensity, a loving
remembrance of who Jacob is, and who Jehovah is–and the
suppliant speaks in terms fit to be used towards the thrice holy God
by a man of lowly heart. This is to be the subject of our discourse–
humility is the fit attitude of prayer. We will begin with that–"I am
not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth which
You have showed unto Your servant." Then we will advance, in the
second place, to remark that humility is promoted by the same
considerations which encourage prayer–that I shall show you from
the text. And thirdly, humility suggests and supplies many
arguments which can be used in prayer. A proud man has few
reasons to bring before God–but the humbler a man is, the more
numerous are his prevailing pleas. Prayer is a suitable employment
for a sinner–and a sinner is the best person to exercise prayer.
Our first observation is that HUMILITY IS THE FIT ATTITUDE
OF PRAYER. I do not think that Jacob could have prayed unless he
had stripped off the robes of self-justification which he wore in his
controversy with Laban–and had stood disrobed before the infinite
majesty of the Most High. Observe that he here speaks not as
before man, but as before God, as he cries, "I am not worthy of the
least of all Your mercies." He had been talking with Laban–Laban
who had made a slave of him, who had used him in the most
mercenary manner–and who had now pursued him in fierce anger
because he had left his service with his wives and children that he
might go back to his native country. To Laban he does not say, "I
am not worthy of what I possess," for, as far as churlish Laban was
concerned, he was worthy of a great deal more than had ever been
rendered to him in the form of wages.
To Laban he uses many truthful sentences of self-vindication and
justification. Laban's substance had greatly increased under Jacob's
unceasing care. He cared for Laban's flocks with constant diligence
and, he says, "In the day the drought consumed me, and the frost
by night; and my sleep departed from my eyes." He declares that he
had never taken a ram of the flock with which to feed his own
family; that he had, in fact, for many years worked with no wages
except the daughters who became his wives. And he goes the
length of saying, "Except the God of my father, the God of
Abraham, and the Fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely you had
sent me away now empty." The same man who speaks in that
fashion to Laban, turns round and confesses to his God, "I am not
worthy of the least of all Your mercies." This is perfectly consistent
and truthful. Humility is not telling falsehoods against yourself–
humility is forming a right estimate of yourself. As towards Laban,
it was a correct estimate for a man who had worked so hard for so
little, to claim that he had a right to what God had given him. And
yet as before God, it was perfectly honest and sincere of Jacob to
say, "I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the
truth which You have showed unto Your servant."
Now, whenever you go to prayer, if you have previously been
compelled to say some rather strong thing as to your own integrity
and industry or, if you have heard others speak in your praise,
forget it all–for you cannot pray if it has any effect upon you. A
man cannot pray with a good opinion of himself–all he can manage
is just to mutter, "God, I thank You that I am not as other men are,"
and that is no prayer at all! A lofty view of your own excellence
will tempt you to look down with contempt upon your neighbor–
and that is death to prayer. God drives out of His Temple all proud
prayers! He cannot endure such provocations! You must take your
shoes off when you stand on holy ground–those same shoes which
are quite light for you to wear when you have to tread upon the lion
and the dragon–those same shoes which fit you well and which
befit you to wear when traveling through this great and terrible
wilderness. Take off, before your God, even that which you are
forced to wear before churlish men!
When we see Jesus, we say of Him, "whose shoe latchet I am not
worthy to unloose." "Lord, I am not worthy," is our cry. Like
Abraham, we acknowledge that we are but dust and ashes–less than
the least of all saints–honored only by being allowed to discharge
any menial function in our Master's house! See, then, that it was
essential for Jacob to get into his right attitude after having
disputed with Laban. It was fit that in lifting his eyes to Heaven, he
should use the most humble language and by no means pretend to
any merit in the Presence of the thrice Holy One.
BrothersandSisters, it would ill become any of as to use the
language of merit before God, for we have no merit! And if we had
any, we would not need to pray!
It has been well observed by an old Divine that the man who
pleads his own merit does not pray, but demands his due. If I ask a
man to pay me a debt, I am not a suppliant, but a plaintiff claiming
my rights. The prayer of a man who thinks he is meritorious is like
serving the Lord with a writ–it is not offering a request–it is issuing
a demand. Merit, in effect, says, "Pay me what You owe me." Little
will such a man get of God, for if the Lord only pays us what He
owes us, yonder place of torment will be our speedy heritage! If,
while living here, we receive no more than we deserve, we shall be
offcasts and outcasts! The meanest of mendicants obtain more than
their deserts. Even life, itself, is a gift from the Creator! "Why does
a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?" Let
us be brought low as we may, we still must admit that "it is of the
Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions
fail not." Any other attitude but that of humility would be most
unbecoming and presumptuous in the Presence of the Most High.
Let me add, also, that in times of great pressure upon the heart,
there is not much fear of self-righteousness intruding. Jacob was
greatly afraid and sorely distressed. And when a man is brought
into such a state, the most humble language suits him. They that are
filled with bread may boast, but the hungry beg. Let the proud take
heed lest while the bread is yet in their mouths, the wrath of God
comes upon them. He that is brought to penury; he that is distressed
in spirit; he that lies at death's door is not a man to show the
peacock's feathers and display his finery! Then he looks about him
to the loving kindness of the Lord and he pleads for mercy. This is
his one cry–"Mercy, mercy!" He finds that he cannot pray until he
has come to his true standing as an undeserving one. And, having
reached that, he has a firm foothold, for he pleads the absolute
sovereignty of Divine Grace and the boundless love of the Divine
heart as substantial arguments for mercy!
I am persuaded that in our prayers we fail, at times, because we
do not get low enough. Only on your face before the Throne will
you prevail. If you have any righteousness of your own, you shall
never have Christ's righteousness. If you have no sin, you shall
have no washing in the precious blood! If you are strong, you shall
be left to your own weakness. If you are rich and increased in
goods, you shall be sent away empty. But when you can truly
confess your nothingness and lie low before God, He must hear
you. "Out of the depths have I cried unto You, O Lord." No prayers
speed better in the heights than those which rise from the depths!
When you are naked, the Lord will clothe you. When you are
hungry, He will feed you. When you are nothing, He will be your
All in All, for then it is that He will win glory to Himself and His
mercies will not be perverted to feed your pride. When our mercies
magnify the Lord, we shall have many of them, but when we use
them for the magnifying of ourselves, they will depart from us.
See, then, dear Friend, how necessary it is that we should approach
the Lord in the attitude of humility.
I call your attention to the present tense as it is used in the text–
Jacob does not say, as we might have thought he would have said,
"I was not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth
which You have made to pass before Your servant," but he says "I
am not worthy." He does not merely allude to his unworthiness
when he crossed this Jordan with a staff in his hand–a poor solitary
banished man–he believes that he was unworthy then and, even
now, looking upon his flocks and his herds and his great family,
and all that he had done and suffered, he cries, "I am not worthy!"
What? Has not all God's mercy made you worthy, Jacob? Brothers
and Sisters, Free Grace is neither the child nor the father of human
worthiness! If we get all the Grace we can ever get, we shall never
be worthy of that Grace, for Grace, as it enters where there is no
worthiness, so it imparts to us no worthiness afterwards as we are
judged before God! When we have done all, we are unprofitable
servants–we have only done what it was our duty to have done!
I cannot stand the man who, in his foolish prattle about his own
perfection, talks as if he had become worthy of Grace. The Lord
have mercy upon such boasters and bring them to the true
moorings, so that they may admit that they are not worthy! When
you and I shall get to Heaven, though God may say, "They shall
walk with Me in white, for they are worthy," yet it will never be
right for any one of us to say that we are worthy of anything that
God has bestowed upon us! Our song must be, Non nobis
Domine–"Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Your name
give glory, for Your mercy, and for Your truth's sake."
To touch the praise which comes to us through the operations of
Divine Grace, even with our little finger, were treason against the
Most High! To assume, for a moment, that we deserve anything of
the Lord God, is so vain-glorious, so false, so unjust that we ought
to loathe the very thought of it, and cry like Jacob, "I am not
worthy!" Job, who had defended himself with vigor and possibly
with bitterness, no sooner heard God speaking to him in the
whirlwind than he cried, "I have heard of You by the hearing of the
ear: but now my eyes see You. Why I abhor myself and repent in
dust and ashes." Prostrate before the Throne is the proper attitude
of prayer–in humility is our strength for supplication.
II. Secondly, the same thought will be kept up, but put in a
somewhat differing light, while we note that THOSE
CONSIDERATIONS WHICH MAKE TOWARDS HUMILITY
ARE THE STRENGTH OF PRAYER. Observe, first, that Jacob, in
this prayer, showed his humility by a confession of the Lord's
working in all his prosperity. He says with a full heart, "All the
mercies and all the truth which You have showed unto Your
servant." Well, but Jacob, you have immense flocks of sheep and
you earned them. And through your care they greatly increased–do
you not consider that those flocks are entirely your own procuring?
Surely you must see that you were highly industrious, prudent,
careful and thus grew wealthy?
No! He takes a survey of his great estate and he speaks of it all as
mercies–mercies which the Lord had showed unto His servant! I do
nor object to books about self-made men, but I am afraid that self-
made men have a great tendency to worship him that made them. It
is very natural they should. But, Brothers and Sisters, if we are self-
made, I am sure we had a very bad maker and there must be a great
many flaws in us! It would be better to be ground back to dust and
made over anew so as to become God-made man! Listen, O proud
self-made mortal! What if you have earned everything–who gave
you strength to earn it? What if your success is due to your shrewd
sense–who gave you skill and foresight? What if you have been
frugal and industrious, yet why were you not left to be as prodigal
as others and to waste in riot what God bestowed on you? Oh, Sir,
if you are lifted an inch above the dunghill, you should bless God
for it, for it is from the dunghill you have come!
God helps His servants while they are weak. But when they fancy
themselves strong, He frequently humbles them. When we cry,
"Behold this great Babylon that I have built," God may not cast us
off, but He will cast us down. He did not cast off Nebuchadnezzar,
but He did allow him to lose his reason and mingle with the beasts
of the field. If we act brutishly, the Lord may allow us to become
like beasts in other matters. The use of our reasoning powers is a
gift of heavenly charity which should lead us to deep gratitude–but
never induce in us pride as to our superior abilities! If we are out of
Bedlam we ought to bless the Lord in the humblest manner. Shall
we dare to glory in our talents? Shall the axe boast against him that
hews with it? Shall the net exalt itself against the fisherman who
drags the sea with it? That were, indeed, a folly–a God-provoking
folly! Inasmuch as God does so much for us, we ought to be
humbled by the weight of obligation which love heaps upon us.
This may also yield us a hold upon God in prayer, for now we can
say, "Lord, You have done all this for me! It is plain that Your hand
has been in all Your servant's happiness–let your hand be with me,
still." Oh, self-made man, when you have made yourself, can you
keep yourself and preserve yourself in being? And do you hope to
get to Heaven and throw up your cap and say, "Hosanna to
myself"? Do you reckon upon such vain-glory? If you seek your
own glory, you shall find no place in that city where God's Glory is
the all-pervading bliss of the place. So, then, that which tends to
keep us humble, also becomes an assistance to us in our prayers.
The next point is a consideration of Goads mercies. For my part,
nothing ever sinks me so low as the mercy of God. And, next to
that, I am readily subdued by the kindness of men. When the
clarion rings out for battle, I will stand foot to foot with him that
dares encounter me–and all the man within me is awakened to the
conflict–but when all is peace and quiet, and everyone wishes me
well, I wonder at their kindness, and I sink into my shoes with fear
lest I should act unworthily in any way. The man who has a due
sense of his own character will be laid low by words of
commendation. When we remember the loving kindness of the
Lord to us, we cannot but contrast our littleness with the greatness
of His love, and feel a sense of self-debasement. It is written,
"They shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the
prosperity that I procure unto it." The words are true to the letter.
Take a case–Peter went fishing and if he had caught a few fish,
his boat would have floated high on the lake. But when the Master
came into the boat and told him where to throw the net so that he
pulled up a multitude of fish, then the little boat began to sink!
Down, down, it went and poor Peter went down with it till he fell at
Jesus' feet and cried, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O
Lord." He was confused and overwhelmed, or he would never have
asked the blessed Master to leave him–Christ's goodness had fairly
beaten him till he was afraid of his Benefactor! Know you not what
it is to be weighed down with infinite goodness, oppressed with
mercy, swept away by an avalanche of love? I, at least, know what
it means and I know of no experience which has made me so little
in my own eyes! I feel less than the least of all His mercies! I
shrink and tremble in the presence of His bounty! If ever
providential goodness does this, you may be sure that redeeming
love will be even more effectual!
Here is a proud sinner, boasting of his own righteousness. You
cannot get his self-glorying out of him, but, by-andby, he learns
that the Son of God gave His life to redeem him, poured out His
heart upon Calvary's Cross, the Just for the unjust, to bring him to
God–and now he is of another mind! No man could ever think that
he deserved that the Son of God should die for him! If he does
think so, he must be out of his mind! Dying love touches the heart
and the man cries, "Lord, I am not worthy of a drop of Your
precious blood! I am not worthy of a sigh from Your sacred heart! I
am not worthy that You should have lived on earth for me, much
less that You should have died for me." A sense of that wondrous
condescension which is the highest commendation of God's love,
that in due time Christ died for the ungodly, brings the man down
upon his knees, dissolved by the mercies of God!
Now, if there is any man here who has a good hope through Grace
that by-and-by he will be with God in Heaven–if he will meditate
upon the Beatific Vision, if he will picture to himself the crown
upon His head and the palm branch in His hand, and himself
enjoying the everlasting hallelujah–
"Far from a world of grief and sin,
With God eternally shut in,"
why, the next thing he will do is sit down and weep that this can
be possible! Such a poor, useless, sinful soul as I am–can I be
glorified, and has Jesus gone to prepare a place for me? Does He
give me His own assurance that He will come again and receive me
to Himself? Am I a joint-heir with Christ and a favored child of
God? This makes us lose ourselves in adoring gratitude. Oh, Sirs,
we can never open our mouth again in the way of boasting! Our
pride is drowned in this sea of mercy!
If we had a little Savior, and a little Heaven, and little mercy, we
might still hang out our flags. But with a great Savior, and great
mercy, and a great Heaven, we can only go in, like David, and sit
before the Lord and say, "Why all of this for me?" I have a dear
Brother in Christ who is now sorely sick, the Rev. Mr. Curme, the
vicar of Sandford in Oxfordshire, who has been my dear friend for
many years. He is the mirror of humility and he divides his name
into two words, Cur me? which means, "Why me?" Often did he
say, in my hearing, "Why me, Lord? Why me?" Truly I can say the
same, Cur me?–
"Why was I made to hear Your voice
And enter where there's room,
While thousands make a wretched choice
And rather starve than come?"
This exceeding kindness of the Lord all tends to promote humility
and, at the same time, to help us in prayer, for if the Lord is so
greatly good, we may adopt the language of the Phoenician woman
when the Master said to her, "It is not meet to take the children's
bread, and to cast it to dogs." She answered, "Truth, Lord. Yet the
dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."
So we will go and ask our Lord to give us crumbs of mercy–and
they will be enough for us poor dogs. God's crumbs are bigger than
man's loaves and if He gives us what to Him may be a crumb, it
shall be a meal to us. Oh, He is a great Giver! He is a glorious
Giver! We are not equal to His least gift! We cannot estimate His
least mercy, nor describe it fully, nor praise Him for it sufficiently!
His shallows are too deep for us! His mole-hill mercies overtop us!
What shall we say of His mountain mercies?
Again, a comparison of our past and our present will tend to
humility and, also, to helpfulness in prayer. Jacob, at first, is
described thus, "With my staff I passed over this Jordan." He is all
alone, no servant attends him. He has no goods, not even a change
of linen in a parcel–nothing but a staff to walk with. Now, after a
few years, here is Jacob coming back, crossing the river in the
opposite direction. And he has with him two bands. He is a large
grazier, with great wealth in all manner of cattle. What a change! I
would have those men whom God has prospered never to be friend
who preserved the tree axle of the truck in which he wheeled home
his goods when he first came to London. It was placed over his
front door and he never blushed to tell how he came up from the
country, worked hard, and made his way in the world.
I like this a deal better than the affected gentility which forgets
the lone half-crown which pined in solitude in their pockets when
they entered this city. They are indignant if you remind them of
their poor old father in the country, for they have discovered that
the family is very ancient and honorable! In fact, one of their
ancestors came over with the Conqueror! I have never felt any wish
to be related to that set of vagabonds, but tastes differ, and there are
some who think that they must be superior beings because they are
descended from Norman freebooters. Nobodies suddenly swell as if
they were everybody! Observe that Jacob does not say, "Years ago
I was at home with my father, Isaac, a man of large estate." Nor
does he talk of his grandfather, Abraham, as a nobleman of an
ancient family in Ur, of the Chaldees, who was entertained by
monarchs.
No, he was not so silly as to boast of aristocracy and wealth, but
he frankly admits his early poverty–"With my staff, a poor, lonely,
friendless man, I crossed this Jordan, and now I am become two
bands." It humbles him to think of what he was, but, at the same
time, it strengthens him in prayer, for, in effect he pleads, "Lord,
have You made two bands of me that Esau may have the more to
destroy? Have You given me these children that they may fall by
the sword?" So again I say–that which humbled also encouraged
him–he found his strength in prayer in those very things which
furnished motives for lowliness!
III. And now, as time flies, we must dwell upon the third point,
still hammering the same nail on the head–TRUE HUMILITY
SUPPLIES US WITH ARGUMENTS IN PRAYER. Look at the
first one, "I am not worthy of all Your mercies." No, "I am not
worthy of the least of all the many mercies which You have showed
unto Your servant. You have kept Your Word and been true to me,
but it was not because I was true to You. I am not worthy of the
truth which You have shown to Your servant." Is there not power in
such a prayer? Is not mercy secured by a confession of
unworthiness? The man whom Christ most of all commended, as
far as I remember, was he who used this very language. The
centurion came to Christ and said, "Lord, I am not worthy that You
should come under my roof"–yet this was he of whom the Lord
said, "I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel."
Depend on it, if you want Christ's commendation, you must be
lowly in your own esteem, for He never praises the proud! But He
does honor the humble. Since the Lord was thus gracious to him
when he was unworthy, had not Jacob splendid ground to stand
upon while he wrestled with God and cried, "Deliver me from
Esau, my brother, though because of the wrong I did him I am not
worthy of such deliverance"? We are always afraid, in our time of
trouble, that God will deal with us according to our unworthiness–
but He will not. We say to ourselves, "At last, the sins of my youth
have come home to me. Now I shall be dealt with according to my
iniquities!"
But Jacob virtually said, "Lord, I never was worthy of the least
thing that You have done for me. And all Your dealings with me are
in pure Grace. I stand still where I always must stand–a debtor to
Your sovereign undeserved favor! And I appeal to You–since You
have done all this for me, an undeserving one, I beseech You, do
yet more! I have not changed, for I am as undeserving as ever, and
You have not changed, for You are as good as ever. Therefore still
deliver Your servant." This is mighty pleading with the Most High!
Then please notice that while Jacob thus pleads his own
unworthiness, he is not slow to plead God's goodness. He speaks in
most expressive words, wide and full of meaning. "I am not worthy
of the least of all Your mercies. I cannot enumerate them, the list
would be too long! It seems to me as if You have given me all
kinds of mercies, every sort of blessing. Your mercy endures
forever and You have given it all to me." How he extols God as
with a full mouth when he says, "All Your mercies." He does not
say, "all Your mercy"–the word is in the plural–"the least of all
Your mercies." God has many bands of mercies–favors never come
alone–they visit us in troops! All the trees in God's vineyard are
full of branches and each branch is loaded with fruit! All the
flowers in God's garden bloom double–and some of them bloom
sevenfold!
We have not only mercy, but mercies numerous as the sand!
Mercy for the past, the present, the future! Mercy to temper
sorrows, mercy to purify joys! Mercy for our sinful things, mercy
for our holy things. "All Your mercies"–the expression has a vast
acreage of meaning! He does not know how to express his sense of
obligation except with plurals and universals! The language is so
full, I could never exhibit all its meaning! He seems to say to the
Lord, "Because of all this great goodness, I pray You go on to deal
well with Your servant. Save me from Esau, or all Your mercies
will be lost! Have You not, in Your past love, given pledge to me to
keep me even to the end?" Mercy and truth all through the Bible
are continually joined together–"All the paths of the Lord are
mercy and truth." "God shall send forth His mercy and His truth."
These two gracious ones grasp hands in Jacob's prayer–"All Your
mercies and all Your truth!" Oh, Brothers and Sisters, if you would
wrestle with God and prevail, use much these two master
arguments–mercies and truth! These are two keys which will open
all the treasures of God! These are two shields behind which you
will be out of reach of every fiery arrow! That which made Jacob
humble also made him strong in prayer. Gratitude for mercy made
him bow before God, but it also enabled him to grasp the Angel
with the hand of believing importunity!
Notice, next, how he says "Your servant." A plea is hidden away
in that word. Jacob might have called himself by some other name
on this occasion. He might have said, "I am not worthy of the least
of all the mercies and of all the truth which you have showed unto
Your child." It would have been true. It would not have been
fitting. Suppose it had run–"Unto Your chosen"? It would have
been true, but not so lowly. Or, "unto Your covenanted one"–that
would have been correct, but not so humble an expression as Jacob
felt bound to use in this time of his distress, when the sins of his
youth were brought to his mind. He seemed to say, "Lord, I am
Your servant. You did bid me come here and here I have come
because of that bidding–therefore protect me." Surely a king will
not see his servant put upon when engaged in the royal service!
Jacob was in the path of duty and God would make it the path of
safety. If we make God our Guide, He will be our Guard. If He is
our Commander, He will be our Defender. He will not permit any
Esau to smite with the sword one of His Jacobs! When we fully
cast ourselves upon the Lord by a believing obedience, we may
depend upon it that He will bear us up and bear us through!
Masters are commanded to give unto their servants that which is
just and equal–and we may be sure that our Master in Heaven will
do the same to each of us who serve Him. Jacob was in danger
through His service and, therefore, the Lord's honor was pledged to
see him through. It may seem a small thing to be a servant, but it is
a great thing to plead in the hour of need! So David used it–"Make
Your face to shine upon Your servant." "Hide not Your face from
Your servant; for I am in trouble." "O my God, save Your servant
who trusts in You." These are but specimens of the ways in which
men of God used their position as servants as an argument for
mercy.
Jacob had yet another plea which showed his humility and that
was the argument of facts. "With my staff," he says, "I passed over
this Jordan." "This Jordan," which flowed hard by and received the
Jabbok. It brings a thousand things to his mind, to be on the old
spot again. When he crossed it before, he was journeying into exile.
But now he is coming back as a son to take his place with loved
Rebekah and father Isaac–and he could not but feel it a great mercy
that he was now going in a happier direction than before. He
looked at his staff and he remembered how, in fear and trembling,
he had leaned upon it as he pursued his hasty, lonely march. "With
this staff–that is all I had." He looks upon it and contrasts his
present condition and his two camps with that day of poverty, that
hour of hasty flight!
This retrospect humbled him, but it must have been a strength to
him in prayer. "O God, if You have helped me from abject need to
all this wealth, You can certainly preserve me in the present danger.
He who has done so much is still able to bless me and He will do
so."–
"Can He have taught me to trust in His name
And thus far have brought me to bring me to shame?"
Does God mock men? Does He encourage their hope and then
leave them? No, the God that begins to bless, perseveres in blessing
and, even to the end, continues to love His chosen!
In closing, I think I discover one powerful argument here in
Jacob's prayer. Did he not mean that although God had increased
him so greatly, there had come with it all the greater responsibility?
He had more to care for than when he owned less. Duty had
increased with increased possessions. He seems to say, "Lord,
when I came this way, before, I had nothing–only a staff–that was
all I had to take care of. And if I had lost that staff, I could have
found another. Then I had Your dear and kind protection, which
was better to me than riches. Shall I not have it now? When I was a
single man with a staff, You did guard me. And now that I am
surrounded by this numerous family of little children and servants,
will You not spread Your wings over me? Lord, the gifts of Your
goodness increase my need–give me proportionately Your blessing!
I could, before, run away and escape from my angry brother–but
now the mothers and the children bind me and I must abide with
them and die with them unless You preserve me."
My Brothers and Sisters, at this hour I know how to use this same
plea! To me, every advance in position among men means more
obligation to serve my Lord and bless my generation! I need more
Divine Grace or my failure will be the more shameful! Unworthy
as we are of all this blessing, yet we dare not trifle with it and
refuse to serve our God with all our powers. The more oxen–the
more plowing has to be done! The broader the fields–the more
laboriously must we sow. The larger the harvest–the more
industriously must we reap! And for all this we need much more
strength. If God blesses and increases us in talent, or in substance,
or in any way, ought we not to conclude that the larger trust
involves greater responsibility? Thus our life's task grows sterner,
more difficult and we are driven more than ever to our God!
This is our argument–"O Lord, You have imposed upon me a
wider service! Give me more Grace! In Your goodness You have
committed more talents to him that had 10 talents–will You not
give more help to put all out to interest for Your name's sake?" Yes,
Brother, as God lifts you up, take care that you bow lower and
lower at His feet. Consecrate even more entirely your whole being
unto God! Be thankful if your pound has gained one pound and, if
He does more for you, be restless till His five pounds have gained
five more pounds. Let the goodness of God, instead of becoming a
cloak for your pride, or a couch for your sloth, be an incentive to
your industry, a stimulus to your zeal! May it help your humility,
but, at the same time, encourage your confidence when you draw
near to God in prayer, to feel how largely you are under obligations
to serve the Lord.
Come, dear Friends, the Lord has been mindful of us as a Church
and He will bless us! We have obtained, through our Lord Jesus
and His Spirit, blessings so large that I can say in your name we are
not worthy of the least of all these mercies! Shall we not use them
to God's Glory? Yes, more than ever–for we are determined to pray
more, to believe more and to work more–and to be more full of
courage and dauntless resolve that the name and the truth of Jesus
shall be made known wherever our voice can be heard! As long as
tongues can speak and hearts can beat, God helping us, we will live
for Jesus our Lord! We are what Rutherford would call, "drowned
debtors"–let us be living lovers! Our ships have gone down in a sea
of love till mercy rolls over our topmasts. So be it! So be it! We are
swallowed up in an abyss of love! My figure describes us as
sinking, but in very truth it is thus we rise by being filled with all
the fullness of God! With a full heart I pray for you, Beloved. God
bless you, for Christ's sake. Amen. PORTION OF SCRIPTURE
READ BEFORE SERMON–Genesis 32.HYMNS FROM "OUR
OWN HYMN BOOK"–PSALM 103 (VERSION II), 705, 214.
Ge 32:11 • Jacob's Fear and Faith
ERMON 2817
Jacob's Fear And Faith
" Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand
of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the
mother with the children. And You said, I will surely do you good,
and make your seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be
numbered for multitude."
Genesis 32:11,12
JACOB is the type of a Believer who has too much planning and
scheming about him. He is a wise man according to the judgment
of the world. Put him down by the side of Laban and if his relative
tries to stint him in his wages and to cheat him in all manner of
ways, you will see that Jacob, in the long run, will get even with
Laban. He seems to have been able to deal, even with that con-
man, quite as sharply and not to come off second best in the
bargain! Abraham never descended to any of the tricks by which
Jacob sought to increase his flocks. He lived like a princely man in
simple, childlike confidence in God, willing to be injured rather
than to seek his own interests, letting Lot, though a younger man,
choose the best part of the land and being quite content to take
whatever remained. Because God was with him as his portion, he
had no hunger after anything else. He was worth fifty thousand of
such kings as the king of Sodom and though he had a right to the
spoils of war, he waived them, saying, "I will not take from a
thread even to a shoelace. I will not take anything that is yours lest
you should say, 'I have made Abram rich.'"
Jacob, if he had been in such a case, would have looked very
closely after all the threads, the shoelaces and all the other things
that he had captured in the war. He would have said that God gave
them into his hands and he would take good care to preserve them.
Among worldlings, Jacob would be regarded as a much more
sensible man than either his grandfather Abraham, or his father
Isaac. But when you come to weigh him in the balances of the
sanctuary, although he was a great and good man, and a man of
such force of character that he is reproduced in his descendants,
even to the present generation, yet, for all that, the weakness of his
character lay in the human strength of that character–his power to
plot and plan makes him appear as a much smaller and feebler man
in the eyes of those who can judge spiritually,than Abraham, his
forefather was.
I suppose Jacob's bargaining faculty came from his mother and
she got it from her brother, Laban, and Laban, with his niggardly
ways, was enough to infect the whole family. Rebekah, in that
artful plot by which she deceived her blind old husband and taught
her son to rob his elder brother of his father's blessing, showed that
the same vein was in her–and that she belonged to that plotting,
scheming stock. And the mother's character was strongly
manifested in her son Jacob. Hence it is that you find him getting
into all manner of trouble. Abraham had his trials and one great
supreme trial, but, as a summary of his life, it is written, "The Lord
had blessed Abraham in all things." And everybody feels that
Abraham's life was a most desirable one. It is such a life as we
might, any of us, wish to live. But Jacob's life is not a desirable
one. At one time he is bargaining with his famished brother about a
mess of red pottage–a transaction which we cannot approve. Then,
afterwards, we find him joining with his mother in deceiving his
poor old father. It is noteworthy that he who had deceived his
father, Isaac, was himself deceived by his uncle, Laban! Such
conduct is generally repaid into our own bosoms–our chickens
come home to roost and we get back for ourselves what we thought
we had given away to others. Jacob's own summary of his life, as
he gave it to Pharaoh, was, "Few and evil have the days of the
years of my life been," so full were they of sorrow and trial. I may
say of him as was said of many of David's mighty men,
"Nevertheless, he attained not unto the first three." There he stands,
accepted and blest, for he was a man of faith, but the very strength
of his character, as I have already reminded you, was the proof of
its weakness and caused him many sorrows.
Our text introduces Jacob to us just before that memorable night
by the brook Jabbok. He was expecting his brother Esau to come
with a troop of 400 men, perhaps to slaughter the whole company.
The Patriarch's state of mind is a mixture of fear and faith. He
doubts, yet he believes! He has much distrust, yet he does confide
in God, at least to some extent. As two hosts met him, so he,
himself, was the representative of two hosts. Solomon says in the
Canticles, "What will you see in the Shulamite? As it were the
company of two armies." So was it with Jacob. There were both
nature and Grace, belief and unbelief, fear and faith battling
together in his soul. What a picture he is of many of us in whom a
perpetual warfare is being waged between the Law of Grace and
the Law that is by nature in our members–between the heavenly
principle that cannot die, and cannot sin–and the old nature which
is always struggling for the mastery and making us often cry out,
"O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of
this death?"
I am going, first, to speak about JACOB'S FEAR as we have it
mentioned in our text–"I fear him, lest he will come and smite me,
and the mother with the children."
My first observation is that Jacob, in his fear, is not to be held up
as an example to us. He is not to be commended forthus fearing
Esau and neither are we to imitate him in this respect. My next
remark will, perhaps, seem strange to you, but I ask you to weigh it
well and consider it carefully. There is a great deal that Christians
feel which they never ought to feel. There are a great many things
that Christians do which they never ought to do and there are many
places into which Christians go into which they never ought to go.
It was so with the ancient Believers and especially with Jacob. His
experience is the experience of a good man, but it is not, in all
respects, the experience that a good man ought to have. Why
should he have been filled with fear at the prospect of meeting his
brother? There was no reason for it–his grandfather Abraham
would not have had any such fear–and if Jacob had possessed more
Divine Grace, he would not have said, concerning Esau, "I fear
him." He knew that God had given him the blessing which Esau
despised–again and again had the Lord appeared to him–and he
must have known that he was blessed in a way that Esau was not.
Why, then, should he fear his brother?
Should the elect of God be afraid of one who has neither part nor
lot in the matter? Should he not rather feel that the son of the King
of kings must not fear the child of Satan, the heir of wrath? The
friends of the wicked Haman said to him, "If Mordecai is of the
seed of the Jews, before whom you have begun to fall, you shall
not prevail against him, but shall surely fall before him." And well
may Mordecai stand upright in the king's gate and never bow his
head before Haman! Why should he fear and tremble even though
Haman has the ear of the king? Mordecai has the ear of the King of
kings, so he need not be afraid of anything Haman could do!
Jacob's fear was wrong, first,
because it followed immediately after a great deliverance. He had
left his father-in-law,
Laban, in haste. He had stolen away by night and Laban had
hurried after him. Encumbered as Jacob was with so numerous a
company which included so many young children and so much
cattle, he had to move very slowly–and Laban soon overtook him.
He was boiling over with rage when he started and meant to do
desperate things, but God interposed and made him put the sword
into the scabbard, so that, instead of there being any slaughter,
there was as kindly a state of feeling between the two as could be
expected under the circumstances. After God had preserved His
servant Jacob from the wrath of Laban, it is strange that he should
have been afraid of Esau. He has been delivered once, cannot he
expect to be delivered again? He has just been rescued from one
peril, yet he trembles in the prospect of another!
Do you know anybody who ever acted in that way? If you do not,
I do. I know where he lives. I will not say that I live with him, but I
will confess, with sorrow, that I have sometimes been that very
person. Have you also been one of the same sort of persons? If so, I
will not say what I think of you, "How foolish I am to act thus!
Howbasely am I acting towards my Lord!" He who has been with
us, never changes–what He has done once, He will do again. Is His
arm shortened, or His eye blinded, or His heart turned to stone?
No! Then surely we ought to have learned by experience to trust in
God, even as Jacob ought to have learned from his experience so
fresh in his memory and trusted the Lord concerning Esau as He
had delivered him from the wrath of Laban!
Another thing that tended to make Jacob's fear inexcusable was
that the angels of God had met him just before. Thechapter from
which our text is taken, tells us, in its opening verse, that, "Jacob
went on his way, and the angels of God met him." Messengers
from the eternal Throne of God came to salute God's favorite! And,
I suppose, to escort him back to the land that was given to his
fathers by a Covenant that could not be broken. The Patriarch was
attended, before and behind, or on the right hand and on the left, by
two companies of angels, yet he says, "I fear Esau." Even in the
society of those who must have borne a perfume of Heaven upon
their wings, standing in the midst of immortal spirits whose faces
must have reflected the Glory of their Lord and Master, Jacob says,
"I fear Esau." Again I ask, Did you ever know anybody act in such
a fashion as this? Perhaps you say, "I never saw any angels." No,
but you have, by faith, seen the great Angel of the Covenant, the
Lord Jesus Christ, and you have had most intimate communion
with Him. At His Table, how often has He revealed Himself to us
in the breaking of bread? And in the reading or hearing of His
Word, how often has He been set forth before us as our Heavenly
Bridegroom, the Beloved of our soul? And, sometimes when we
have been quite alone, the bright light of His Presence has
surprised us and our hearts have burned within us while He has
communed with us. Well, then, it has been very shameful on our
part if, afterwards, we have feared Esau, or have been afraid of
some anticipated trouble, or fearful because of bodily pain, or,
perhaps, put out of temper by some trifling matter in the household
which should have been altogether beneath our notice as
companions of the Lord of the angels! The Lord have mercy upon
His servants and forgive our unbelieving fear, for which we will
not pretend to make any excuse!
Note, concerning Jacob's fear, that it probably arose out of the
recollection of his old sins. Old sins, like old sores,are very apt to
break out again. The very mention of the name of Esau brought up
before his mind the day when his mother cooked the "two good
kids of the goats," and took his brother's goodly raiment, put it on
Jacob and put the skins of the kids upon his hands and his neck,
that he might deceive his father into the belief that he was his "very
son Esau." Jacob remembered all that and felt that Esau had good
reason to be angry, for he had supplanted him twice, and done him
grievous wrong. He was afraid of Esau on the principle that
"conscience makes cowards of us all." A sin may be forgiven by
God, yet, for all that, its sting may be felt by you 50 years
afterwards, just as, perhaps, some of you may have had a bone
broken in your boyhood and had it very well set, yet, sometimes,
before bad weather, you feel a twinge that reminds you that bone
was once broken. Thus it was with Jacob–that old bone began to
creak and to threaten that bad weather was coming. If he had dealt
fairly and justly with Esau–and left the Lord to settle that matter of
the birthright as He had always intended to give it. If he had left
God to arrange everything in His own way, and had not been so
wise, in his own estimation, like his clever, scheming mother, he
would not have been afraid to meet Esau as he now was!
Well, dear Friends, perhaps some old sin is the cause of your fear.
If so, I pray you to remember that one sin ought not to lead you to
commit another, or to be an excuse for committing another.
Suppose that, in your early days, you did sin in a certain fashion, or
that, in your later days, you have transgressed in some other way?
Should you, therefore, doubt your God? You should be humble in
the remembrance of your sin, but you should not, therefore,
mistrust the Most High! He is always faithful, whatever we may
have been. He did not, at the first, receive us as innocent, but as
guilty–yet He saved us. As we look back upon the past, we may
well mourn our guiltiness, but let us not doubt our salvation if we
have believed in Jesus! Even when God's people get themselves
into trouble, it is very remarkable how He delivers them. They
ought to be careful as to how they walk before Him, but even when
they are not, and their folly brings them into a net, yet does He
come and tear the net in pieces–and the poor captive bird escapes
out of the snare of the fowler. Even when we willfully wander from
Him, the Lord graciously restores our souls, blessed be His name!
Do not, therefore, let the remembrance of our past guilt lead us into
any doubt concerning the fidelity of Him who has cast all our sins
into the depths of the sea and who will never allow them to be
again laid to our charge.
There is this which is commendable to be said about Jacob's fear–
it led him to prayer. What was he doing when hesaid of his brother
Esau, "I fear him"? O Brothers and Sisters, if you ever say the
same thing, mind that you get to the same place where Jacob was
and say it, as he said it, to his God! It is ill to say it at all, but if it is
said, it is well to say it to the Lord. Go to Him with whatever
troubles you have and unburden your souls at the Mercy Seat. If
there is any suspicion or mistrust in your mind or heart–dark and
black though the thought may be–yet go and tell Him all! He
knows all about it, for He reads your heart, yet go to Him and lay it
all before Him and ask Him to cleanse it all away. To go and tell
our doubts to our fellow creatures is like spreading an infectious
disease–it does not often bring us any comfort–and it frequently
causes others to have more distrust who had quite enough of their
own before. We ought not to be slack in prayer, for we are ready
enough to tell our neighbors all about our trials and troubles,
though they cannot help us!
Note, also, that JacobThat was a good thing. "I am not worthy,"
he saidto the Lord, "of the least of all the mercies and of all the
truth which You have showed unto Your servant; for with my staff I
passed over this Jordan and now I am become two bands." It is a
blessed thing, sometimes, to look back upon our past history in
order to revive our confidence in God at the present time. It never
does to rely only upon the past and to say, "God favored me at
such-and-such a time and, therefore, I am His." No, you need
present mercy–as you cannot liveon the meat you ate long ago–so
you cannot exist on only past mercy. Yet, as I have reminded you,
you may have seen how the bargemen on the canal push backward
to send the boat forward–and you may push backward with your
experience in order to send the boat of your life forward in new
confidence in God.
I do not speak only for myself when I say that if we will review
our lives from the first day until now, we shall be again surprised at
the wonderful loving kindness of the Lord towards us. Jacob speaks
to the Lord, "of all the mercies,and
all the truth, which You have showed unto Your servant." Now, if
anybody could have foretold, 20 years ago, to some of you, that
you would be in such a good position as you are now in, you would
have been filled with delight at the prospect, yet, perhaps, you are
not now happy in the possession of it. And if you could have
foreseen all the mercy which God has strewn in your pathway, you
would have jumped for joy! Yet you do not jump for joy now as
you look back upon it. Is not that wrong? Oh, when I think of what
the Lord has done for me, personally, I reckon that I would be the
very chief of sinners if I should ever mistrust Him again! I can say,
and so can you, my Brothers and Sisters in Jesus–
When trouble, like a gloomy cloud,
Has gathered thick and thundered loud,
He near my soul has always stood,
His loving kindness, oh, how good!"
Then, why should any of us ever say, in unbelief–
He?
Beloved Friends, think of the places from which the Lord brought
some of you. It is not so very long ago since you were living in
sin–perhaps in the worst forms of sin–without hope and without
God in the world. Had you died as you were then, where would you
have been? Yet now you are numbered among the Lord's children
and you have enjoyed much of His love and been highly favored by
Him! I charge you by the abounding mercy which you have
received–let these present fears that now molest you, be driven
from your bosom!
Furthermore, Jacob was also led to seek out the promise that was
most suitable to his case, for he said, "I fear Esau,that he will come
and smite me, and the mother with the children." Now notice how
appropriate was the promise that he quoted to meet the case–"And
You said, I will surely do you good, and make your seed as the
sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude." Now, if
the father is killed and the mother and the children are killed, how
can Jacob's seed be as the grains of sand upon the seashore which
cannot be counted? He had a good hold upon his God when he
quoted that promise and, Beloved, it may be the same in your
experience. You never know the preciousness of the promises till
you realize your need of them. You may not know what keys the
locksmith has in his possession. Possibly he does not know,
himself, how many he has. But if you lose the key to your door,
you send for him and he comes with a great bunch of keys–and he
tries one, and another, and another, and another till, at last, he finds
one that will fit. God's promises are often so little studied by His
people that they are like a great bunch of rusty keys till we really
need them! And then we turn them over and we say, of some
particular promise, "That just meets my case. Blessed be the name
of the Lord, it must have been made on purpose for me! That key
fits all the wards of this lock." And then you begin to prize the
promise.
It is, I think, worthy of note that God had not said to Jacob, in so
many words, "I will surely do you good." At least,as far as the
Scriptures are concerned, there is no record of any such promise.
But He had said to the Patriarch, "I am with you," and, "I will not
leave there." So, this is Jacob's version of the promise and it is a
true one, too, because if God says, "I am with you," he means, "I
will do you good." Have you ever heard Brothers pray, in the
Prayer Meeting, "Lord, You have promised that where two or three
are gathered together in Your name, You will be in the midst of
them and that to bless them and do them good"? Well now, that last
part is what they have tagged on to our Savior's words. He did not
say, "and that to bless them and do them good," because it was not
necessary to say that. If the Lord is in the midst of them, He must
bless them and do them good! So Jacob felt that if the Lord had not
put it in just those words, He implied it when He said, "I am with
you." How could the Lord be with him except to do him good?
That was his translation of the original text which came out of
God's lips–and that is what the Lord really meant by it. Jacob had
gone below the surface and spied out the hidden meaning–and if
you should ever be able to see more in a promise than is in it, it is
in it! I seem to contradict myself by that paradox, yet it is true. If
the Word of the Lord should, in its literal construction, not actually
contain all that your faith can see in it, yet over every promise there
is this Law of God written, "According to your faith, be it unto
you." And you may rest assured that your faith will never outrun
the promise of God! He will keep His promise, not only to the
letter, but to the fullest possible meaning that you can impart to it!
II. But I must not say any more about Jacob's fear, or I shall have
no time for speaking about HIS FAITH. Yet I have been speaking
about it while I have been talking concerning his fear.
First, JacobHe mentioned his fear of Esau and then he turned to
the Lord,saying, "You said, I will surely do you good." Oh, what a
hold he had of God! "'You said.' You cannot lie and You said, 'I
will surely do you good.' You cannot go back from Your word and,
'You said, I will surely do you good.'" He seems to hold God to it
as men hold their fellow men to a promise which they have given.
There is nothing that he can see in which he can trust. God seems
to be doing nothing, to be quite still–yet Jacob reminds Him of His
promise, "You said." The promise is sufficient for Jacob without
any act or deed as yet. "You said, You said, I will surely do you
good."
I must also remind you that
this was what Jacob said when he began to pray. If you turn to his
prayer, you will see
that he began by saying, "O God of my father Abraham, and God
of my father Isaac, the Lord which said unto me," and so on. That
is the beginning of his prayer and the end of it is, "And You said."
That should always be both the beginning and the ending of prayer.
You must never go beyond God's promises. If He has said
anything, that is enough for you, but do not expect that your whims
and fancies will be indulged. You must begin your prayer by saying
to God, "You said," and when you do that, the weakest saint or
sinner may plead so as to prevail. You can never get a stronger plea
than the Lord's own promise! You can never strike a blow that will
more effectually clinch the nail than this, "You said. You said."
O Brothers and Sisters, I scarcely know how to put this matter
before you as I ought, because if God says a thing, who is there
among us who shall dare to give Him the lie? If it was years ago
that He said it. If it is an old promise, even in the oldest book of the
Old Testament, yet there is no such thing as time with God–one day
is with him as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day–
and the promise is just as good as if He had made it at this very
moment! If you could hear God speak now, you would not doubt
Him, would you? Well, but did He at any time utter this promise?
Then it stands fast forever, for He has never spoken in secret so as
to change what He has said in public! Every promise of God is sure
to all those who put their trust in Him. Jacob's faith rested, in its
beginning and its end, upon the promise of God–this was the basis
of it, and this alone. Can you say that this is the foundation of all
your confidence for time and for eternity? If you can, is it not a
basis worth resting upon, a foundation fit to build upon? Is there
any supposable weight which this Rock cannot sustain? Is there
any imaginable trouble which may not be endured while God's
great solemn promise stands forever fast?
Yet Jacob's faith, while it was resting upon the promise of God,
was, nevertheless, a struggling faith. It was a mixture of, "I fear
Esau" and, "You said." Beloved, have you only a struggling faith?
Then, struggle on! Never give up struggling. If your faith is only
like Jacob's wrestling, wrestle on, for, notice that Jacob, when he
had said to the Lord, "You said," and quoted the promise, stopped
praying, for he was satisfied to leave the case there. So, Brothers
and Sisters, if your faith begins only as struggling faith, it is the
nature of it to increase and grow till, at last, it comes to be
victorious faith! Pray for victorious faith. Ask the Lord to give you
the confidence that will not be daunted, the unstaggering faith of