My dear sheep. Josella and I have been reading through a fantastic devotional in the evening called, "365 Days with Spurgeon" (highly recommended!). Last night we read one that comes from a sermon that is entitled, "A Sermon for the Week of Prayer". It obviously caught my attention because we are going to be having a week of prayer at Church in July (22nd to 28th). This morning, after my devotions, I decided to have a read through the full sermon that it is quoted from. It was absolutely excellent - not that I am surprised! Below you will find some excellent quotes that come from it, but I would strongly recommend reading the full sermon.[1]
Also, would you please mark the dates in your calendar? It would be wonderful for the entire church to gather in prayer to beseech the favour of God.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon:
There is a great distinction between the prayer of the real convert and the merely convinced sinner. The merely convicted sinner, terrified by the law, calls but once; the awakened heart, renewed of the Holy Spirit, never ceases to cry until the mercy comes. A few days ago, by the seaside, on the coast of the Isle of Wight, a woman thought she heard, in the midst of the howling tempest, the voice of a man. She listened; it was repeated; she strained her ear again, and she caught, amid the crack of the blast and the thundering of the winds, another cry for help. She ran at once to the beachmen, who launched their boat, and some three poor mariners who were clinging to the mast were saved. Had that cry been but once, and not again, either she might have doubted as to whether she had heard it at all, or else she would have drawn the melancholy conclusion that they had been swept into the watery waste, and that help would have come too late. So when a man prays but once, either we may think that he cries not at all, or else that his desires are swallowed up in the wild waste of his sins, and he himself is sucked down into the vortex of destruction. If the Church of God shall offer prayer this week, and then shall cease to be in earnest, we shall think her never to have meant her prayers. If she shall but now and then start up and make her supplications, we shall write her down a hypocrite intent for a moment upon keeping appearances, but afterwards relapsing into her lukewarm Laodicean condition...
It is not possible that God should refuse to hear prayer. It is possible for him to bid the sun stand still, and the moon to stay her monthly march; it is possible for him to bid the waves freeze in the sea, possible for him to quench the light of the stars in eternal darkness, but it is not possible for him to refuse to hear prayer which is based upon his promise and offered in faith...
I think I see the Church as I fear she is now. There she is upon her knees, with hands clasped; she mutters a few words; her head droops, for she is weary; again she pleads, and yet again her head is well nigh fallen on her bosom; she is a sleeping Church in prayer. Am I too severe in this my picture? I believe it is true; I think there are some members of the Church thoroughly awake, but they are few...
[1] C. H. Spurgeon, “A Sermon for the Week of Prayer,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 7 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1861), 50.