Jeremiah 33:3 Call to me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you know not. God s people have always in their worst conditions found out the best of their God. Those who dive into the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls. 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.) Parallel Verses KJV: Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not. |
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