Call to Me, and I will answer and show you great and unsearchable things you do not know. Sermons
I. HAS SCIENCE DISCOVERED ALL GOD'S FIXED LAWS? Are you quite sure that nowhere there may be some law which shall provide for these results which Christians call "answers to prayer"? We are bound to be grateful for the magnificent discoveries of the laws of the universe which science has already made. But has it discovered all these laws? and if not, why amongst those as yet undiscovered ones may there not be that which the Christian needs to justify his prayer? It is the same argument as John Foster urges against the atheistic doctrine that there is no God! "What ages and lights are requisite for this attainment, the knowing that there is no God! This intelligence involves the very attributes of divinity, while a God is denied. For unless this man is omnipresent, unless he is at this moment in every place in the universe, he cannot know but that in some place there may be manifestations of a Deity by which even he would be overpowered Unless he knows all things, that is, precludes another deity by being one himself, he cannot know that the Being whose existence he rejects does not exist." Now, in like manner, the Christian may meet the scientific unbeliever by asking him whether he has traced every effect up to its cause. May not, then, the cause you do not know be the one which meets the Christian's need and secures answer to his legitimate prayers? II. WHAT MORE RIGHT HAS SCIENCE TO REJECT THE FACTS FROM WHICH THE CHRISTIAN DEDUCES HIS DOCTRINE THAT GOD ANSWERS PRAYER, THAN THE CHRISTIAN HAS TO REJECT THE FACTS UPON WHICH SCIENCE BASES HER DOCTRINE OF INVARIABLE LAW? Science marshals her facts. They are a goodly array, and drawn from all departments of creation, animate and inanimate; from all kinds of living organisms, whether animal or vegetable; and they have forced upon you, we readily admit, the conviction of the universality and invariability of natural law. Christians are bound to believe you. We are not going to question your facts, though we may some of your inferences from them. Let your facts once be proved to be facts, as so many of them have been, and we will candidly accept them. Yes, though they compel us to set aside some old and cherished interpretations of Scripture, and to confess that we have read our Bibles wrongly in more than one instance. We trust you in your statement of facts; we believe you to be good men and true. Now we turn and ask you to deal with us and our facts in like manner. For we, too, have facts from which we have drawn the conclusion that, let prayer be according to the will of God, he will assuredly answer it. Some of our facts which have much force with us you perhaps would not admit, since you would explain them on the ground of mere coincidence, and we could not prove that, apart from prayer, they could not have been. E.g. persons in distress have called upon God; relief has unexpectedly come and in very remarkable ways. The believer looks on such instances as answers to prayer; nothing can persuade him that they are not. Still, it cannot be denied that they may have occurred without such prayer. Other such instances are those in which life despaired of has been given back in answer to, or in connection with, fervent prayer for such restoration; as the Prince of Wales's recovery in 1872. Now, this recovery might have been - we cannot prove that it could not - apart from prayer, and therefore, whilst these instances are very convincing to the believer, they are not so to others. But there are facts concerning which we can say they are valid for our argument, because they never have occurred and never do occur, apart from prayer. E.g. in the coming away of any soul from its attachment to the world to surrender itself in trust and love to Christ - that which is called conversion; was this ever known apart from prayer? Did ever any find the Lord without seeking him - i.e without prayer? Also in the ordinary conduct of the Christian life, who among us is able to keep his garments unspotted from the world, to overcome besetting sin, to confront and conquer temptation, to preserve the hands clean and the heart pure, without continual prayer? Again, who are they that have attained to a high degree of spiritual life and vigour, to whom it is their habit to walk with God; who "rejoice in the Lord always;" who are God's saints indeed, the very elect, about whose being born of God we have no doubt? Now, every one of these will tell you that they owed their all to the habit their Lord enabled them to maintain of constant prayer. Press on in thought to the realms of the blest, move up and down amid the throng of God's redeemed; is there one who has or could have attained that blessedness if on earth he had not sought God in prayer and called on the Name of the Lord? So with any really living Church, a Church that is a power for good, a blessing to the neighbourhood, a Church at peace, at work, and blessed with the prosperity of God, is the life of such a Church ever possible apart from this same power of prayer? Its life is nurtured, not by its wealth, numbers, rank, culture, intellect, eloquence, or any such gifts, but by its prayers. All the rest would let it starve; by prayer alone it lives. One other instance - the winning of our children for God. Does any parent or teacher ever secure this great joy without prayer? Never. Such are our facts; in them we are sure that God answers prayer; and hence we believe also that in the material world he does the same. And as we receive the facts of science, so we ask that our facts may be received likewise. III. IS NOT GOD OUR FATHER? The scientific hypothesis denies his fatherhood, if not his very existence altogether. If he do exist, he is, according to the scientist, so enclosed in his own laws and in the visible adjustment of things that he has no room for freedom of choice, for exercise of will. Like the mainspring of a watch, he is shut up in his own works, and can only act in one given way. Or, like the locomotives on our railways, he must keep to the rigid appointed iron track, and not swerve therefrom in the least. But that is not our conception of God. We believe him to have a mind, a will, a heart; and hence we conclude that, like the best earthly parents, whilst keeping ever in view the true welfare of his children, he yet allows himself, within those limits, freedom of action as may seem to him wisest and best. Now, within these limits there is room for prayer and room for answers to prayer. We cannot believe him to be so tied down by his physical laws that, when it is consistent with the highest good of his children, and yet more when it is necessary for that good, he is unable to modify or alter them even though he would. A God so bound by physical law is really no God, and the creed of the atheist will alone harmonize with the assertions of science. If there be a God, he must be a personal God; but if he be a Person, then he must have will, the power of choice; but if he have will, he must be able to modify the action of his laws, as we can and do continually; and if he be our Father, as we believe, then we need not doubt that the fervent believing prayer of his children will avail much to induce him to modify his laws for our good. And hence we maintain that it is good to call upon him, and that he is nigh unto such and will save them. Prayer, then, is not unreasonable if there be a God; not unreasonable if we adopt the very methods of science itself, and deduce our doctrine from our facts; not unreasonable, unless it can be shown that science is aware of and has registered every fixed law of God. - C.
Call unto Me, and I win answer thee. I. A GRACIOUS INVITATION — "Call unto Me" implies all the constituents of successful prayer.1. Penitence. 2. Contrition. 3. Humility. 4. Importunity. 5. Restitution. 6. Faith. II. A PRECIOUS PROMISE — "And I will answer thee." The invitation accepted, its conditions complied with, always brings the answer. 1. God's word pledged. 2. God's nature pledged. 3. Confirmed by the experience of His saints. III. A GLORIOUS REVELATION — "And will shew thee," &c. 1. The greatness of God's love. 2. The power of Jesus to forgive sin. 3. The worth of the soul. 4. The joys and comforts of religion. 5. The victory of faith in death. (J. T. Davies.) 1. Whose is it? 2. To whom is the invitation addressed? 3. What is the tenor of the invitation? II. THE PROMISE. 1. It is general. 2. It is special. Apply (1) (2) (G. Brooks.) I. PRAYER COMMANDED. 1. This is great condescension. So great 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 the condescension of God on the other that He issues a command of love. 2. Our hearts so despond over our unfitness and guilt that but for the command we might fear to approach. 3. It is remarkable how much more frequently God calls us to Him in Scripture than we find there our sinfulness denounced! 4. Nor by the commands of the Bible alone are we summoned to prayer, but by the motions of His Holy Spirit. II. AN ANSWER PROMISED. 1. God's very nature, as revealed in Jesus Christ, assures us that He will accept us in prayer. 2. Our own experience leads us to believe that God will answer prayer; e.g., the conversion of many a child has been an answer to parents' pleadings with God. 3. Yet God does not always give the thing we ask. Lord Bolingbroke said to the Countess of Huntingdon, "I cannot understand, your ladyship, how you can make out earnest prayer to be consistent with submission to the Divine will." "My lord," she said, "that is a matter of no difficulty. If I were a courtier of some generous king, and he gave me permission to ask any favour I pleased of him, I should be sure to put it thus: 'Will your majesty be graciously pleased to grant me such and such a favour; but at the same time, though I much desire it, if it would in any way detract from your majesty's honour, or if in your majesty's judgment it should seem better that I did not have this favour, I shall be quite as content to go without it as to receive it.' So you see I might earnestly offer a petition, and yet might submissively leave it with the king." III. ENCOURAGEMENT TO FAITH. 1. Promised to God's prophet, this specially applies to every teacher. The best way for a teacher or learner in Divine truth to reach the deeper things of God" is to be much in prayer. Luther says, "Bene orare est bene studuisse" — To have prayed well is to have studied well 2. The saint may expect to discover deeper experience and to know more of the higher spiritual life, by being much in prayer. 3. It is certainly true of the sufferer under trial; if he waits on God he shall have greater deliverance than he ever dreamed of (Lamentations 3:57). 4. Here is encouragement for the worker. We know not how much capacity for usefulness there is in us. More prayer will show us more power. 5. This should cheer us in intercession for others. 6. Some are seekers for your own conversion. Pray, and see if God will not "show you great and mighty things." ( C. H. Spurgeon.) The text belongs to every afflicted servant of God. It encourages him in a threefold manner. —I. TO CONTINUE IN PRAYER. "Call unto Me!" 1. Pray, though you have prayed (see Jeremiah 32:16, &c.). 2. Pray concerning your present trouble. In Jeremiah 32:24, the prophet mentions "the mounts" which were raised against Jerusalem, and in ver. 4 of this chapter the Lord answers on that very point. 3. Pray though you are still in prison after prayer. If deliverance tarries, make your prayers the more importunate. 4. Pray; for the Word of the Lord comes to you with this command. 5. Pray; for the Holy Spirit prompts you, and helps you. II. To EXPECT ANSWERS TO PRAYER. "I will answer thee, and shew thee." 1. He has appointed prayer, and made arrangements for its presentation and acceptance. He could not have meant it to be a mere farce: that were to treat us as fools. 2. He prompts, encourages, and quickens prayer; and surely He would never mock us by exciting desires which He never meant to gratify. 3. His nature is such that He must hear His children. 4. He has given His promise in the text; and it is often repeated elsewhere: He cannot lie, or deny Himself. 5. He has already answered many of His people, and ourselves also. III. TO EXPECT GREAT THINGS AS ANSWERS TO PRAYER, "I will shew thee great and mighty things" We are to look for things — 1. Great in counsel; full of wisdom and significance 2. Mighty in work; revealing might, and mightily effectual. 3. New things to ourselves, fresh in our experience and therefore surprising. We may expect the unexpected. 4. Divine things: "I will shew thee." (1) (2) (3) ( C. H. Spurgeon.) A young engineer was being examined, and this question was put to him: "Suppose you have a steam-pump constructed for a ship, under your own supervision, and know that everything is in perfect order, yet, when you throw out the hose, it will not draw; what should you think? I should think, sir, there must be a defect somewhere." "But such a conclusion is not admissible; for the supposition is that everything is perfect, and yet that the pump will not work." "Then, sir," replied the student, "I should look over the side of the ship to see if the river had run dry." Even so it would appear that if true prayer is not answered the nature of God must have changed.Sir Walter Raleigh one day asking a favour from Queen Elizabeth, the latter said to him, "Raleigh, when will you leave off begging?" To which he answered, "When your Majesty leaves off giving." Ask-great things of God. Expect great things from God. Let His past goodness make us "instant in prayer." Thomas Brooks, alluding to the old classical myth of Daedalus, who, being imprisoned in the island of Crete, made wings for himself, by which he escaped to Italy, says, "Christians must do as Daedalus, who, when he could not escape by a way upon earth, went by a way of heaven." Holy prayers are the wings of the soul's deliverance.( C. H. Spurgeon.) What is this calling unto God? Is it a verbal exercise? Is it a mere act of exclamation! Nothing can be further from the meaning. It is a call that issues from the heart; it is the call of need, it is the cry of pain, it is the agony of desire, it is enclosure with God in profound and loving communion. If we have received no answers, it is because we have offered no prayers. "Ye have not because ye ask not or because ye ask amiss," — you have been praying obliquely instead of directly; you have been vexing yourselves with circumlocution when your words ought to have been direct appeals, sharp, short, urgent appeals to Heaven: to such appeals God sends down richness of dew, wealth of blessing, morning brighter than noonday. God will shew His people "great and mighty things." There is nothing little. The bird in the heavens upon its trembling wing is only little to us, it is not little to God. He counts the drops of dew, He puts our tears into His bottle, He numbers our sighs, and as for our groans, He distinguishes one from the other; these are not little things to Him, they are only little to our ignorance, and folly, and superficiality. God looks at souls, faces, lives, destinies, and the least child in the world He rocks to sleep and wakes in the morning, as if He had nought else to do; it is the stoop of Fatherhood, it is the mystery of the Cross. As to these continual revelations, they ought to be possible. God is infinite and eternal, man is infinite and transient in all his earthly relationships; it would he strange if God had told man everything He has to tell him, it would be the miracle of miracles that God had exhausted Himself in one effort, it would be incredible that the eternal God had crushed into the moment which we call time every thought that makes Him God. Greater things than these shall ye do; when He, the Paraclete, is come, He will guide you into all truth; grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ; add to your faith, until you scaffold yourselves up into brotherly love and charity, for from that pinnacle the next step is right into heaven. The question is, Are we in need of further revelation? Do we call for it? We may call for it speculatively, and no answer will he given; we may ask for it for the sake of mere intellectual delectation, and the heavens will be dumb and frowning: but if we try to outgrow God, then we shall know what God is in reality; He challenges the sacred rivalry, He appeals to our emulation to follow Him and study Him, and try to comprehend Him, and then how like a horizon He is, for we think we can touch Him in yonder top, but having climbed the steep the horizon is still beyond. To cleverness God has nothing to say; to vanity He is scornfully inhospitable; but to the broken heart, to the contrite spirit and the willing mind, to filial, tender, devout, obedience, He will give Himself in infinite and continual donation: To this man will I look, for I see My own image in him, My own purpose is vitalised in his experience — the man who is of a humble and contrite heart, and who trembleth at My word, not in servility, but in rapture and wonder at its grandeur and tenderness."(J. Parker, D. D.) When poor men make requests to us we usually answer them as the echo does the voice; the answer cuts off half the petition. We shall seldom find among men Jael's courtesy, giving milk to those that ask water, except it be, as this was, an entangling benefit, the better to introduce a mischief. There are not many Naamans among us, that, when you beg of them one talent, will force you to take two; but God's answer to our prayers is like a multiplying glass, which renders the request much greater in the answer than it was in the prayer.(J. Reynolds.) One of the heathen poets speaks of Jupiter throwing certain prayers to the winds, — dispersing them in empty air. It is sad to think that we often do that for ourselves. What would you think of a man who had written and folded and sealed and addressed a letter, flinging it out into the street and thinking no more about it? Sailors in foundering ships sometimes commit notes in sealed bottles to the waves for the chance of them being some day washed on some shore. Sir John Franklin's companions among the snows, and Captain Allen Gardiner dying of hunger in his cove, wrote words they could not be sure anyone would ever read. But we do not need to think of our prayers as random messages. We should therefore look for a reply to them and watch to get it.(J. Edmond.) And shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not. There are different translations of these words. One version renders it, "I will shew thee great and fortified things." Another, "Great and reserved things." Now, there are reserved and special things in Christian experience: all the developments of spiritual life are not alike easy of attainment. There are the common frames and feelings of repentance, and faith, and joy, and hope, which are enjoyed by the entire family; but there is an upper realm of rapture, of communion, and conscious union with Christ, which is far from being the common dwelling-place of believers. We have not all the higher privilege of John, to lean upon Jesus' bosom; nor of Paul, to be caught up into the third heaven. There are heights in experimental knowledge of the things of God which the eagle's eye of acumen and philosophic thought hath never seen: God alone can bear us there; but the chariot in which He takes us up, and the fiery steeds with which that chariot is dragged, are prevailing prayers. Prevailing prayer is victorious over the God of mercy. "By his strength he had power with God: yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto Him: he found Him in Bethel, and there He spake with us." Prevailing prayer takes the Christian to Carmel, and enables him to cover heaven with clouds of blessing, and earth with floods of mercy. Prevailing prayer bears the Christian aloft to Pisgah, and shows him the inheritance reserved; it elevates us to Tabor and transfigures us, till in the likeness of our Lord, as He is, so are we also in this world.( C. H. Spurgeon.) People Babylonians, Benjamin, David, Ezekiel, Isaac, Jacob, Jeremiah, LevitesPlaces Jerusalem, Negeb, ShephelahTopics Cry, Declare, Difficult, Fenced, Hast, Hidden, Mighty, Secret, Shew, Unsearchable, YeaOutline 1. God promises to the captivity a gracious return;9. a joyful state; 12. a settled government; 15. Christ the branch of righteousness; 17. a continuance of kingdom and priesthood; 19. and a stability of a blessed seed. Dictionary of Bible Themes Jeremiah 33:3 5815 confusion Library A Threefold Disease and a Twofold Cure. 'I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against Me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against Me.'--JER. xxxiii. 8. Jeremiah was a prisoner in the palace of the last King of Judah. The long, national tragedy had reached almost the last scene of the last act. The besiegers were drawing their net closer round the doomed city. The prophet had never faltered in predicting its fall, but he had as uniformly … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Things Unknown Discerning Prayer. The Royal Priesthood The Best of the Best Nature of Covenanting. Putting God to Work Be Ye Therefore Perfect, Even as Your Father which is in Heaven is Perfect. Matthew 5:48. The Sermon of the Seasons Twentieth Day for God's Spirit on the Heathen Truth Hidden when not Sought After. Cleansing. Curiosity a Temptation to Sin. Jeremiah Links Jeremiah 33:3 NIVJeremiah 33:3 NLT Jeremiah 33:3 ESV Jeremiah 33:3 NASB Jeremiah 33:3 KJV Jeremiah 33:3 Bible Apps Jeremiah 33:3 Parallel Jeremiah 33:3 Biblia Paralela Jeremiah 33:3 Chinese Bible Jeremiah 33:3 French Bible Jeremiah 33:3 German Bible Jeremiah 33:3 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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