that looks a little more like money. But still, when they are taken to the bank, they are always acknowledged and accepted as being genuine, however rotten and old they may be. So with our prayers: they are foul with unbelief, decayed with imbecility, and worm eaten with wandering thoughts; but nevertheless, God accepts them at heaven’s own bank, and gives us rich and ready blessings, in return for our supplications.
7. II. Again: I hope we shall be led to love God for having heard our prayers, if we consider THE GREAT VARIETY OF MERCIES WHICH WE HAVE ASKED IN PRAYER, AND THE LONG LIST OF ANSWERS WHICH WE HAVE RECIEVED. Now, Christian, again — be your own preacher. It is impossible for me to depict your experience as well as you can read it yourself. What multitudes of prayers have you and I put up from the first moment when we learned to pray! The first prayer was a prayer for ourselves; we asked that God would have mercy upon us, and blot out our sin. He heard that. But when he had blotted out our sins like a cloud, then we had more prayers for ourselves. We have had to pray for sanctifying grace, for constraining and restraining grace; we have been led to ask for a fresh assurance of faith, for the comforting application of the promise, for deliverance in the hour of temptation, for help in the time of duty, and for help in the day of trial. We have been compelled to go to God for our souls, as constant beggars asking for everything. Bear witness, children of God, you have never been able to get anything for your souls elsewhere. All the bread your soul has eaten has come down from heaven, and all the water of which it has drank has come out of that living rock, — Christ Jesus the Lord. Your soul has never grown rich in itself; it has always been a pensioner upon the daily bounty of God; and hence your prayers have had to ascend to heaven for a range of spiritual mercies all but infinite. Your wants were innumerable, and, therefore, the supplies have been innumerable, and your prayers have been as varied as the mercies have been countless.
8. But it is not for your soul alone that you have pleaded, your body has had its cries. You have been poor, and you have asked for food and clothing. How frequently have they been given to you. Not by miracles it is true. The ravens do not bring you bread and meat, but bread and meat come without the ravens which is a greater miracle still. It is true your clothing has become worn out, and therefore you have not realised the miracle of the children of Israel in the wilderness, whose clothes never wore out. Nevertheless you have had a greater miracle still, for you have had new ones when you needed them. All your necessities have been provided for as they have arisen. How often have these necessities come upon you? So great have they been at times, that you have said, “Surely the Lord will forsake me and deliver me over; I shall not have my bread given to me, nor shall my water be sure.” But so far God has fed you; you are not starved yet, and by the grace of God you will not be. You have been told many a time by unbelief that you would die in the poorhouse; but you are not in it yet, though it seems as if a thousand miracles had been put together to keep you from it.
9. Then again; how often sickness has laid hold upon you, and like Hezekiah, you have turned your face to the wall, and cried, “Lord, spare your servant, and do not let him go down to the grave in the midst of his days”: and here you are, living, living to praise God. Remember the fever and the cholera, and all those other fierce diseases which have laid you low; remember those prayers you uttered, and those vows you made. Oh! do you not love the Lord because he has heard your voice and your supplication? How frequently too have you prayed for journeying mercies, and he has protected you in the midst of accidents. You have asked for blessings in your going out and your coming in; blessings of the day and of the night, and of the sun and of the moon; and all these have been bestowed upon you. Your prayers were innumerable; you asked for countless mercies, and they have all been given. Only look at yourself: are not you adorned and bejewelled with mercies as thickly as the sky with stars? Think how you have prayed for your family. When you first knew the Lord your husband did not fear him; but how you wrestled for your husband’s soul! and now the tear is in your eye while you see your husband sitting by your side in the house of God, and remember, it is not many months ago since he would have been in the tavern. Your children too have been brought to God through your prayers. Mothers, you wrestled with God that your children might be God’s children, and you have lived to see them converted. How great the mercy to see our offspring called in early youth. Oh! love the Lord, because in this respect too he has heard your voice and your supplication. How often have you presented before God your business, and he has helped you in that matter. How frequently have you laid your household sorrows before him, and he has delivered you in that case. And some of us can sing of blessings given to us in the service of God in his church. We have lived to see the empty sanctuary crowded to the full; we have seen our largest attempts successful beyond our most sanguine hopes; we have prayed for sinners, and seen them saved; we have asked for backsliders, and have seen them restored; we have cried for a Pentecost, and we have had it; and by God’s grace we are crying for it again, and we shall have it once more. Oh minister, deacon, elder, church member, father, mother, man of business, have you not indeed cause to say, “I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice and my supplications?” I am afraid the very fact that God hears our prayers so constantly, leads us to forget the greatness of his mercy. Let it not be so, “Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and do not forget all his benefits.” Let this today be brought to mind, and let me raise a song to the God who has heard the voice of my supplication.
10. III. Let us note again THE FREQUENCY OF HIS ANSWERS TO OUR FREQUENT PRAYERS. If a beggar comes to your house, and you give him alms, you will be greatly annoyed if within a month he shall come again; and if you then discover that he has made it a rule to wait upon you monthly for a contribution, you will say to him, “I gave you something once, but I did not mean to establish it as a rule.” Suppose, however, that the beggar should be so impudent and impertinent that he should say, “But I intend sir, to wait upon you every morning and every evening”: then you would say, “I intend to keep my gate locked that you shall not trouble me.” And suppose he should then look you in the face and add still more, “Sir, I intend waiting upon you every hour, nor can I promise that I will not come to you sixty times in an hour; but I just vow and declare that as often as I want anything so often will I come to you: if I only have a wish I will come and tell it to you; the least thing and the greatest thing shall drive me to you; I will always be at your door.” You would soon be tired of such importunity as that, and wish the beggar anywhere, rather than that he should come and pester you so. Yet remember, this is just what you have done to God, and he has never complained about you for doing it; but rather he has complained about you the other way. He has said, “You have not called upon me, oh Jacob.” He has never murmured at the frequency of your prayers, but has complained that you have not come to him enough. Every morning when you have risen your cry has gone up to him; again with the family you have cried to the God of Jacob; in the evening you have gathered together and have prayed to him, and whenever you have a trial, or a want, or a doubt, or a fear, you have, if you have done rightly, sped away swiftly to his throne and told him all. Speak now, saint, has he once said to you “Begone, you weary me?” Has he ever said “My ear is heavy that it cannot hear, my arm is shortened that I cannot save?” Has he said, “Away with you, I do not want to be perpetually hearing you? What is your harsh grating voice, that I should always give my ear to it? Am I not listening to the songs of angels, to the shouts of cherubim? Away with you, do not pester me. At certain times you may come, on Sunday you may pray, but I do not want to hear you in the week?” No, no; he has sweetly embraced us every time, he has always bowed down from the heaven and come down to listen to our feeble cries; he has never denied a promise, never broken his word, even when we have pleaded a thousand times a day. Oh I will love the name of such a patient God as this, who bears with my prayers though they are as a cloud of hornets in the air.
11. IV. Go a little further and you will have another thought arising. Think of THE GREATNESS OF THE MERCY FOR WHICH YOU HAVE OFTEN ASKED HIM. We never know the greatness of our mercies until we get into trouble and need them. I speak today of pardoned sin, but I confess I do not feel its preciousness as I once did. There was a time when my sins lay heavy on me; conscience accused me, and the law condemned me, and I thought if God would only pardon me, it would be the greatest thing he ever did. The creating of a world seemed to me to
