and death destroyed, the soul made perfect and fit to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light. And looking further yet, the believer’s soul can see Death’s river passed, the gloomy stream forded; he can behold the hills of light on which stands the celestial city; he sees himself enter within the pearly gates, hailed as more than a conqueror — crowned by the hand of Christ, embraced in the arms of Jesus, glorified with him, made to sit together with him on his throne, even as he has overcome and has sat down with the Father upon his throne. The sight of the future may well relieve the darkness of the past; the hopes of the world to come may banish all the doubtings of the present. Hush, my fears! this world is only a narrow span, and you shall soon have passed it. Hush, hush, my doubts! death is only a narrow stream, and you shall soon have forded it. Time, how short — eternity, how long! Death, how brief — immortality, how endless!
Oh the transporting, rapturous scene
That rises to my sight!
Sweet fields arrayed in living green,
And rivers of delight.
Filled with delight my raptured soul
Would here no longer stay,
Though Jordan’s waves around me roll,
Fearless I’d launch away.
Yet nevertheless the Christian may do well sometimes to look backward; he may look back to the hole of the pit and the miry clay from where he was dug — the retrospect will help him to be humble, it will urge him to be faithful. He may look back with satisfaction to the glorious hour when first he saw the Lord, when spiritual life for the first time quickened his dead soul. Then he may look back through all the changes of his life, to his troubles and his joys, to his Pisgahs and to his Engedis, to the land of the Hermonites and the hill Mizar. He must not keep his eye always backward, for the fairest scene lies beyond; it will not benefit him to be always considering the past, for the future is more glorious by far; but nevertheless at times a retrospect may be as useful as a prospect; and memory may be as good a teacher as even faith itself. This morning I bid you stand upon the hilltop of your present experience and look back upon the past, and find in it motives for love for God; and may the Holy Spirit so help me in preaching and you in hearing, that your love may be inflamed, and that you may retire from this hall, declaring in the language of the Psalmist, “I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice, and my supplication.”
2. The particular objects which you are now to look back upon are the various and different answers to prayer, which God has given to you. I want you now to take up a book which you ought to read often, the book of remembrance which God has written in your heart of his great goodness and continued mercies; and I want you to turn to that golden page where the instances of God’s grace are recorded in having listened to your voice and having answered your supplications. I shall give you seven reflections, each of which shall stir up your hearts to love our God whose memorial is that he hears and answers prayers.
3. I. And the first thing I wish to have you remember is, YOUR OWN PRAYERS. If you look at them with an honest eye, you will be struck with wonder that God should have ever heard them. There may be some men who think their prayers are worthy of acceptance; I dare say the Pharisee did. But all such men shall find that however worthy they may esteem their prayers, God will not answer them at all. The true Christian in looking back weeps over his prayers, and if he could retrace his steps he would desire to pray better, for he sees that all his attempts at prayer in the past have been rather blundering attempts than actual successes. Look back now Christian upon your prayers, and remember what cold things they have been. You have been on your knees in the closet, and there you ought to have wrestled as Jacob did, but instead of that your hands have fallen down, and you have forgotten to strive with God. Your desires have only been faint, and they have been expressed in such sorry language, that the desire itself seemed to freeze upon the lips that uttered it. And yet, strange to say, God has heard those cold prayers, and has answered them too, though they have been such that we have come out of our closets and have wept over them. At other times our hearts have been broken, because we felt as if we could not feel, and our only prayer was, “God forgive us that we cannot pray.” Yet, notwithstanding, God has heard this inward groaning of spirit. The feeble prayer which we ourselves despised, and which we thought would have died at the gate of mercy, has been nursed, and nurtured, and fostered, and accepted, and it has come back to us a full grown blessing, bearing mercy in both its hands.
4. Then again, believer, how infrequent and few are your prayers, and yet how numerous and how great have God’s blessings been. You have prayed very earnestly in times of difficulty, but when God has delivered you, where was your former fervency? In the day of trouble you besieged his throne with all your might and in the hour of your prosperity, you could not wholly cease from supplication, but oh! how faint was the prayer compared with what was wrung out of your soul by the rough hand of your agony. Yet, notwithstanding that, though you have ceased to pray as you once did, God has not ceased to bless. When you have forgotten your closet, he has not forgotten your house, nor your heart. When you have neglected the mercy seat, God has not left it empty, but the bright light of the Shekinah has always been visible between the wings of the cherubim. Oh! I marvel that the Lord should regard those intermittent spasms of importunity which come and go with our necessities. Oh! what a God is he that he should hear the prayers of men who come to him when they have wants, but who neglect him when they have received a mercy, who approach him when they are forced to come, but who almost forget to go to him when mercies are plentiful and sorrows are few.
5. Look at your prayers, again, in another aspect. How unbelieving have they often been! You and I have gone to the mercy seat, and we have asked God to bless us, but we have not believed that he would do so. He has said, “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you shall have it, and you shall have it.” Oh! how I could slap myself this morning, when I think how on my knees I have doubted my God! What would you think of a man who came before you with a petition, and said, “Sir, you have promised to give me such-and-such a thing if I asked for it; I ask for it, but I do not believe you will give it to me.” You would say “Begone until you trust me better. I will give nothing to a man who doubts my word.” Often might the Lord have spurned us from his mercy seat, when we have come to him, not believing the very promises which we were pretending to plead.
6. How small, too, the faith of our most faithful prayers! When we believe the most, how little do we trust; how full of doubting is our heart, even when our faith has grown to its greatest extent! What Christian is there here who is not ashamed of himself for having so often doubted a God who never yet denied himself, who was never once untrue, nor once unfaithful to his word? Yet, strange to tell, God has our prayers; though we did not believe, he remained faithful. He has said “Poor heart, your weakness makes you doubt me, but my love compels me to fulfil the promise, even though you doubt.” He has heard us in the day of our trouble; he has brought us sweet deliverance, even when we dishonoured him by trembling before his mercy seat. I say again, look back upon your prayers, and wonder that God should ever have heard them. Often, when we awaken in the morning, and find our house and family all secure, and remember what a poor family prayer we uttered the night before, we must wonder the house was not burned and everyone in it. And you in the church, after you have been to the prayer meeting and prayed there, and God has actually listened to you, and multiplied the church and blessed the minister, do you not say afterwards, “I wonder that he should have heard such poor prayers as those that were uttered at the prayer meeting?” I am sure, beloved, we shall find much reason to love God, if we only think of those pitiful abortions of prayer, those unripe figs, those stringless bows, those headless arrows, which we call prayers, and which he has borne with in his longsuffering. The fact is, that sincere prayer may often be very feeble to us, but it is always acceptable to God. It is like some of those one pound notes, which they use in Scotland — dirty, ragged bits of paper; one would hardly look
