Intimate Knowledge of the Holy Spirit (s2074)

0:00Greetings friends and welcome to another podcast from the Heart of Spurgeon. It's my privilege to walk with you through these sermons that were preached by the great Victorian pastor and preacher Charles Spurgeon. And it's not so much his greatness that we admire as the greatness of the Christ whom he proclaimed and for whom he was so much on fire and by whom he was so gifted in seeking to lift him up and to make him known. Several of the sermons we've looked at in the last few weeks, the ones from the end of volume 34 and now this first one from volume 35 are first preached on Thursday evenings over the course of a couple of years previously. That gives him a particular tone and tenor. It reflects as well the fact that Spurgeon is either absent because of sickness or absent because of sickness with recovery.

1:00So when these sermons are identified as intended for reading on a certain Lord's day, we're also usually told when they were originally delivered and we understand that that's some of the background. Our text on this occasion is 1 Kings 9 verses 2 to 3. The Lord appeared to Solomon the second time as he had appeared to him at Ghibin. And the Lord said to him, I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made before me. I have hallowed this house which you have built to put my name there forever and my eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually. It's sermon 2064 in the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit. If you want to follow us on X you can find us there and the Daily Sermon from 2061 to 2067 you'll be able to follow at that point. But each week that featured sermon which is distributed for us by mediagratii.org who produce these podcasts and distribute them for us. You can find there the featured sermon

2:08and sign up for a newsletter where you'll get a link. So here we are in sermon 2064. Some of us remember how the Lord was with us at the beginning of our life work when we started as young men and women newly converted full of zeal and earnestness determined to do something for the Lord. How we sought his face with what simplicity, with what tenderness of heart, with what dependence upon him and dividends as to ourselves. He goes on to say, truly there are things about the lives of Christian men that would not have been possible if God had not appeared to them at the beginning. If he had not strengthened and tutored them and given them wisdom beyond what they possess in themselves, if he'd not inspirited them, if he'd not infused life into them, they had not done what they have already done. Now it's interesting later on he'll make specific reference to this but this sermon is preached in close relation to a church members meeting. An annual church meeting

3:16connected with 1887, the year in which this sermon was first preached, but the notice add two years to the mercy of record and the same reflections will hold good. So there's something deliberately reflective and retrospective in this sermon. And then there's great joy in completing work and yet there is to some minds a great drop when the once-in-grossing service ceases to keep the mind upon the stretch. You run up a hill and you've gained the summit. There's no more climbing for the present and then you almost wish that you had to struggle again. A work like that of Solomon, lasting for seven years, must have become a delight to him to see the house growing and to mark all the stages of its beauty. And so it is with any special and notable work which we are called to do early in life. We get wedded to it. We are glad to see it grow under our hand and when it last that particular portion of our service is finished we feel a kind of loss. We have grown used to the pull upon the collar. We've almost leaned upon it and we feel a difference when we're

4:19at the top of the hill. Personally I never feel exhilaration at a success but a certain sinking of heart when the tug of war is over. Now I think this is a fascinating insight into Spurgeon's personality. He's a man who's constituted to actually enjoy the struggle and he almost feels disappointed when the struggle is over because he's become so accustomed to the strain that it's put upon him. He gets energized by his work rather than now he's certainly worn down by it but in the work in itself doesn't seem to exhaust him so much as it does to stir him up at least in his spirit so his mind is willing but his flesh is weak. And I just wonder how many of us might have found Spurgeon somewhat frustrating. I think today that kind of feebleness and that readiness to say oh yeah we've been doing this so long and there's a flakiness I think about us in our generation

5:23to what to which Spurgeon is a real rebuke just interesting to see the way the man is working and thinking and I think it's not only him I do think there's a sense which is representative of his time and place as well but enough of that. So Spurgeon's point even by way of introduction. Brothers we want renewed appearances fresh manifestations new visitations from on high and I commend to those of you who are getting on in life that while you thank God for the past and look back with joy to his visits to you in your early days you now seek and ask for a second visitation of the most high not that I do not think that you have visitations from God for often and walk in the light of his countenance but still though the ocean is often at flood twice every day yet it has its spring tides so we want this blessing from the Lord even if the works been going on. So we don't need to be converted again yet we do want that again over our heads the windows of heaven should be opened

6:24that once again a pentacost should be given and that we should renew our youth like the Eagles to run without weariness and walk without fainting so we want to go on being filled with the Holy Spirit we want to go on knowing the favor of God in distinct ways and so the Lord speaks in the commencement of his interview with Solomon concerning his prayer and as the Lord answered that prayer and here in this second appearance recapitulated the points of it we may be sure that there was much about that prayer which would make it a model for us so let's follow the text in two or three ways first our proper place in prayer I've heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made before me so before the Lord is where we need to be in prayer and that place is not always found for it's not a physical place that guarantees our entrance into the presence of God

7:25praying before God says Spurgeon is a more spiritual business than is to be performed by turning to the east or to the west or bowing the knee or entering within walls hallowed for ages alas it's easy enough to pray and not to pray before God and it's not so easy it is indeed a thing not to be done except by the power of the Spirit to enter into that which is within the veil and to stand before the mercy seat all blood be sprinkled consciously and really in the presence of the invisible to fulfill that precept you people pour out your hearts before him again before is the place for the souls outpouring and blessed are they that know it and find it so where do you find it well it can be found in public prayer the people were gathered together at Solomon's time and all the armies of the tribes of Israel stood in the streets of the holy city when Solomon bowed his knee and cried mightily to his God it is evident that he was enabled that day not to

8:26pray to please the people nor that they might note his eloquent language and be gratified with the appropriate performance but he was inspired to pray before the Lord so brothers those of us who have to conduct our devotions strive hard that we may be seen of God in secret when heard of men in public and I am sure that we never pray so rightly or so usefully for you as when we only remember you in a very inferior sense but seem to be surrounded as with a cloud enclosed within the secret place of the most high even when we stand supplicating allowed for you in the public assembly of God's people remember he says the mercy seat is no place for the exhibition of your abilities more evil still is it to take the opportunity of making personal remarks about others I've heard of a bleak hints being given in prayer I'm sorry to say that I've even heard remarks which have been so directly critical and offensive that one knew what the brother was at

9:27and lamented it such a proceeding is altogether objectionable and irreverent as to see a meeting for prayer sullied in that way it is just vile we do not even pray in prayer meetings to correct doctrinal errors nor to teach a body of divinity nor to make remarks upon the errors of certain brothers nor to impeach them before the most high these things should be earnest matters of supplication but not of a sort of indirect preaching and scolding in prayer it's conduct worthy of the accuser of the brothers to turn a prayer into an opportunity of finding fault with others and I'm sure many preachers listening many pastors could talk with sadness about the kind of prayer meetings that some of us have seen where point scoring and snide remarks and correcting of doctrine or preaching is has been tragically the norm it ought not to be so it's it's vile and wicked and you can hear it very often when even when someone thinks they're being subtle now then

10:31you can be heard of God in public prayer you can come before God in private prayer you're in your room where you're accustomed to pray do you not find yourself upon your knees repeating goodly words while your heart is wandering may you not confess that often the prayer which has been a matter of habit has been said as much before the walls of your room or before the bedpost as before God you've not realized his presence you've not spoken distinctly and directly to him although you've observed the Saviour's canon and have shut to the door and nobody else has been there so that you have not prayed in the presence of others yet you have mainly prayed in your own presence and God has to your inn most soul been far away it is poor work merely to talk piously to yourself I pour out my soul in me says David there's not much that comes of pouring your heart into your heart praying your soul into your own soul it's neither an emptying of self nor a filling with God it does but stir up what had been quite as well left as drags at the bottom better far

11:34is the course prescribed in that hallowed precept you people pour out your heart before him turn them bottom upwards let all run out before God and so let room be left for something better and more divine pouring out your soul within yourself does not come to much and yet often that is that is about what our prayer amounts to a recapitulation of once without a grasp of divine supplies a bemoaning of weakness without a reception of strength a consciousness of nothingness but not a plunging into all sufficiency brothers the main point of supplication is neither to pray in the presence of others nor yet first of all in your own presence but to present your prayer before God now it's clear then more positively this means that the prayer is to be directed to God well I know that says someone well I know you know it but do you too often forget it like a playful boy you get your bow and arrows and shoot them anywhere the way to pray is to

12:39take in hand the aforesaid bow and arrows and you think I'm going to say shoot them with all your might but I'm not in such haste wait a bit yes draw the string and fit the arrow to it but wait wait wait till you have your eye fixed on the target wait till you see distinctly the center of the mark what can be the use of shooting if you have not something to shoot at wait then till you know what you're going to do you want to strike the white to pierce the center of the target be sure then that you will get it well that you get it well into your eye imitate David who says in the morning will I direct my prayer to you and will look up he has fixed the arrow draw on the bow and taken deliberate deliberate aim now is the time for the next act he lets the arrow fly how well directed see he has made a center he caught the mark with his eye and therefore he has struck it with his arrow oh to pray with a distinct object indefinite praying is a waste of breath

13:42so he asks does anybody here suppose that the repeating of certain words out of a book or of his own making as any virtue in it some seem by their frequent repetitions of that blessed model of prayer the Lord's Prayer to think that there's a magical charm in that sacred arrangement of words but I tell you solemnly you might as well repeat that perfect prayer backwards as forwards if your heart's not in it if your very heart is not in it and if your soul is not looking Godwards you profane your Lord's words and a guilty of all the greatest sin because of their excellence make not praying a piece of witchcraft and your supplications and imitation of the abracadabra of the wizard else its vain superstition and not acceptable supplication pray then distinctly with all your wits about you to your God speak you to him and hence it becomes needful to endeavour in prayer to realize the presence of God he means to to really grapple with God to know that he is present to pour your words into his ear it shall be well put in this way

14:49you've prayed well if you've spoken to God as a man speaks to his friend if you are assured that God is there as that you are there and perhaps somewhat more sure if you are in him and he in you and if you talk to him as one whom you cannot see but whom you can perceive better than by sight you've prayed well if you speak to him as to one whom you cannot feel with your hand but can feel with all your nature with something better than fingers and hands perceiving that he is and knowing that he's hearing you and will reward your diligent seeking this is praying before God pleading before a living God with one who feels and will be moved by what you feel to one who speaks and will listen to what you speak you are to commune with one who is not like your fellow men who may let you plead and remain like a block unmoved by your pathetic requests but to a living God a tender God sensitive to all the sensations of your soul all to come before the living and acting God not before a God lame and impotent not before the new God who is impersonal and dead

15:55but before the true God God in Christ Jesus if we did but realize who he is to whom we speak God very near to us in the person of the only begotten who has taken our nature upon himself what praying hours would be and that is the right sort of praying and so Spurgeon says if there's anyone here who's never prayed let their prayer at this time be to one who is close to them ready to hear them do not ask what shall I say say to God what you wish to say what's your desire tonight would you be saved beg him to save you would you be forgiven ask forgiveness the words you say tell me the words no you don't need words if you have none look look to him let your heart think out its desires there's music without words and there's prayer without words the soul of prayer is being before God and desiring before God who hears without sounds and understands without expressions open your heart look to him and ask him to read what you cannot read beg him of his

16:58great mercy to give you not even according to your own sense of your requirements but according to the riches of his mercy in Christ Jesus you're praying before God when you've realized his presence the Lord does not require from you that you should express yourself in words he reads what is there with an omniscient glance what is written in your heart to know that he does so and to plead in that spirit is prayer before God now Spurgeon says I need to change a angle of attack and to notice with much earnestness what he calls our great de Zidratham in prayer that is the great concern and desire of our hearts and it is what God said that he had given to Solomon I have heard your prayer and your supplication I have often had occasion to remark he tells us that the wise men of modern times whose principal characteristic is that they think so much of themselves and so very little of anybody else tell us that prayer is an excellent exercise good and comforting

18:01and useful but that we are not to suppose that it has any effect upon God whatever we inquire of them would you have us go on praying after the information you have given oh yes they say oh yes of course it's a it's a pious exercise a proper and edifying thing go on praying but do not think that God hears or brothers it's evident that they think us idiots evidently they consider praying men to be born fools if it be certain that prayer has no effect upon God my brother I would just as well whistle when I rise in the morning as pray and I'd assume close my eyes at night in dumb silence as run over a set of ineffectual words there could be no good in prayer if it should be proved that it never went beyond the room in which it was uttered when it ceases to be accepted by the Lord and honored by his response we shall abandon it of course if there's neither hearing nor answering we shall have reduced ourselves to the level of the worshipers of bail if we continue to cry and we've not come to that yet so we're obliged to you wise men for your compliments but we

19:03shall not follow your absurd advice your pretty praises of our devotions are pleasing and instructive exercise are quite lost upon us since they involve a covert insult you may take back your compliments if you please for our opinion of your wisdom is almost equal to your opinion of ours so say Spurgeon after that holy sarcasm and it's very much in keeping with his tone at this time because this is the the season again maybe a little bit before the real weight of it but this is downgrade time and Spurgeon is constantly pushing back against those who've really given up on their faith in the God of Scripture so we want to be heard the first thing we desire is audience with God if the Lord doesn't hear us we've gained nothing and what an honor it is if you come to think of it to have audience with God the frail feeble undeserving creature is permitted to stand in the august presence of the God of the whole earth and the Lord regards that poor creature as if there

20:05were nothing else for him to observe and bends his ear and his heart to listen to that creature's cry it is necessary to a living prayer to feel that we're speaking to God and that God is hearing us we're back with that realized presence and then you see in the Psalms the hearing is what we want not even so much the answering that he should dain't to hear us is quite enough quite enough from such a God as he is if I can get my petition placed in his hand I'm fully satisfied if I can pour my desire into his ear and he has once observed it or further fear is removed your heavenly Father knows that you have need of these things and you may rest perfectly content for in coming into his presence you've done according to his command and therefore his promise holds good to you but we don't want just a mere hearing we want him to accept us we beg him kindly and graciously to accept our poor confessions, petitions, supplications and adorations

21:07and if he does but look and smile if he does but say one word into our soul which implies I've accepted your prayer what a joy it is to a brought and offering which the Lord has accepted this is the sweetness and delight of supplication and then we want to be heard we want to be accepted and how how we want to be answered on matters promised by God in his word then we may come again and again knocking at the Lord's door until he awakes and gives us the loaves that we seek for our hungry and fainting friend oh for more holy boldness oh for more assured confidence we have need to believe that we have the petitions that we ask of him we must ask in faith nothing wavering or we may not expect to receive anything of the Lord and so that brings us to our assurance of answer to prayer it's often in our usual faith I hope that I speak for many of you when I say that we constantly pray believingly it's habitual with me to expect God to answer me I go to him very simply and I

22:11ask for what I want and if I did not have that which I have humbly sought for I should be greatly surprised when I do have it I reckon it as a matter of course for the Lord has promised to answer prayer and it's certain that he will keep his promise now I think if that's usual faith how many of us need to exercise our faith unto Godliness and to ask the Lord to to help us in our believing and our unbelief now sometimes you require strong confidence you're after something extra ordinary according to your faith be it unto you if we can trust God for that is the thing we shall have the thing we seek faith is not saying I know that I have it when you really have it not that would be telling yourself a lie here's a man who says believe that you're sanctified and you're in a moment sanctified but you're not you may believe a lie in believing that and be perhaps less sanctified than you were before you believed it and ten times more proud and thus far more under the influence of Satan to believe in God that he will sanctify me and that he is sanctifying me is a

23:18very different thing from believing that I am already sanctified I believe that God will supply my needs but I do not believe that I've got the Bank of England in my pocket if I did believe it I should not find it there when I put my hand to feel for it faith is not believing fanatically but believing the truth there's a wonderful difference between believing what your fancy says and believing what God has distinctly promised faith and fancier to very different things God keep us from the falsehood of folly and lead us into the truth of wisdom I will believe anything however monstrous it may appear if God says it I will believe nothing however desirable merely because my own fancy imagines it or because your heated brain suggests it strong faith often brings with it a conviction within the soul which nothing can shake a conviction most sure and yet most reasonable since it is inspired by the spirit of God who bears witness only to the truth

24:19and not to dreams to the man's inner consciousness it is as though he heard the voice of God saying I have heard your prayer and your supplications and so this comes sometimes in the form of a comfortable persuasion have you never known what it is to leave off prayer when you're in the middle of it and say I'm heard I'm heard have you not felt that you needed not to cry any longer for you had gained your suit and must rather begin to praise than continue to pray if God has given you the blessing why ask for it any further now this isn't casual on Spurgeon's part he's just saying look you know take God at his word the Lord says to Moses why do you cry unto me speak to the children of Israel that they go forward and that going forward was then a better thing than praying because praying had had its day so there comes a comfortable assurance at times that it is even so and you go your way rejoicing this inward persuasion is no fanatical imagining nor excitement of the brain but a work of the Holy Spirit which none can imitate and only the receiver

25:23can understand or what of a manifest preparation for the blessing God never brought you to a well and put a bucket and rope in your way without intending to fill that bucket when you let it down when the thirsty soil has opened all its mouth to drink in the rain of heaven that rain always comes when the ears of wheat are ready for the sun to ripen them the heat of harvest is near when a man of God so looks for the wind of the Spirit that he spreads the sails of hope the breeze is sure to blow brother it's want of preparation in you that hinders the blessing he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief you are not straightened in us but you're straightened in your own bowels but when the Lord has given you an evident preparation for the blessing the blessings are ready on the way the shadow of its resting upon you in that preparation the Lord virtually says I've heard your prayer and your supplication and then actual observation breeds in us a solid confidence that our suit is succeeding oh sirs I have no patience with

26:28those who say that God does not hear prayer for my daily experience proves the fact I would not lie even under the notion of honoring God but I will speak what I know throughout life it has been my habit to wait upon God about many things and especially about extraordinary necessities which have arisen out of the demands of the great institutions committed to me memory emphasizes the voice of the Lord which says I've heard your prayer I've heard your supplication therefore trust me with all your heart have I not always heard your prayer when did I refuse you my beloved one when did I reject you have I not always harkened to you in the hour of your distress have I not delivered you in the times of your great need have I not supplied you I've heard your prayer go in peace weep no more let not your soul be troubled all is well for I am on the throne of grace and my face is toward you oh this is sweet to consider and now a special application of prayer

27:31for a brief close last night sirsburgeon here's the the point he's making and the situation he's in the members of this church met in their annual church meeting now that was actually two years before this sermon was printed but there's a little note here that says you only need to add two years and you've got two years more worth of understanding of what we're talking about we had at that meeting great joy and thankfulness for all the mercy which God has made to pass before us I have just completed 33 years of ministry here the third of a century with unbroken blessing we can say that all these years have passed with no division and no strife among us with nothing but perpetual benedictions from the Lord God of our salvation blessed be his name now you understand that doesn't mean that there weren't occasional problems there weren't people who needed to be disciplined for sin in the church but asburgeon is saying that the body of Christ has been substantially united through that whole period and oh how many of us wish we could say

28:35more of that for ourselves our prayer is again that the Lord himself then would hallow this house which we have built we ask this in no superstitious way bricks and mortar and iron and stone and nothing to us the qualities of holiness do not adhere to material substances but the hearts and the souls and acts yet we ask our Lord to hallow this tabernacle with his presence still more and if that were gone ecabod the glorious departed would be our bitter cry the glory would indeed have departed we want our Lord to hallow it by his favorable regard that when we worship he will accept our worship and hear our prayers and our praises we want him to hallow it by his working among us in many more conversions it was a joyous time to me when I saw the inquire a comma was number 10,000 that's long ago and we've reached a far higher number now but all is the work of our gracious God think of that 10,000 people wanting to know about salvation we shall never though bring

29:38in another true convert unless we have God's presence oh Lord Jesus we would constrain you saying abide with us so Lord we pray hallow this house we do pray it from our innmost souls you that have found our services to be hallowed to you in days past that days that have passed cannot bear the idea of failure and famine in the future may the Lord say to us tonight I have hallowed this house which you have built but we also want the Lord to put his name there forever that's the hallowing my venerable predecessor says Spurgeon Dr. Rippon who I never saw I've been informed was want to pray for a certain successor of his whom he seemed always to have in his mind's thoughts he frequently prayed for the man whom the Lord would send among the people of his care after his own decease in a letter that I have seen he says which he wrote to a friend I cannot but somehow see myself as in the glimmer of the firelight he saw the person who would follow him and carry on his work after sixty years of service in this church as the old man grew older he used to be praying about

30:43this successor more and more I think that I may begin to pray after his example that as long as there shall be the need for a house of God the name of God may be honored in this tabernacle and may faithful men proclaim his salvation in the power of the holy ghost shall they stand here one day a man that denies the deity of my Lord God forbid and in brackets in the text are men these are the people shouting out in response shall they be found here one that shall preach modern thought and give up the old old gospel God forbid are men in the background let the house be wrapped in flames and every ash be blown away by the winds sooner than that any shall preach from this pulpit any other gospel that you have received are men are men worth bearing in mind that the pulpit did decline and the building did burn down it's been restored the facade was still there but the original brick building was burnt down twice once in a fire once in a bombing I thank you says

31:47virgin though for those loud are men's may God himself say are men and we say it may be that he did may the name of our covenant God be set here forever and no other name and then we want the eye of the Lord and the heart of the Lord to be there perpetually all that the eye of the Lord might be upon this house and upon this church to watch over it to keep it from all harm but may his heart also be with us to fill us with his divine life and love and to make us know his inner self over the love of God to be shed abroad in our hearts by the holy ghost may we know that God's feelings of affection and delight are towards us this shall be our joy unspeakable and so he says to some who aren't members with them but visiting pray for this house and this church and I'll pray you worship and the church to which you belong and then forgive us if we think just now of this particular church we must praise the Lord for all his mercy towards us grace personally received

32:52must be personally acknowledged here's the note of thankfulness you see we're at home and we must think of our own home I can truly sing here my best friends my kindred dwell here guard my savior reigns I dwell among my own people said the schooner might and there is no joy like it for a Christian minister and a Christian church member to feel that he dwells among his own people and is happy with them to be driven from church to church as summer is a wretched business to be like others changing their views as often as the moon happy nowhere miserable everywhere agreeing with nobody not even themselves is a poor business persons of that kind I hope will not join this church just yet or if they do may the Lord convert them as they come in as for us we love each other and our united prayer is that the eye in the heart of God maybe with us and all his people perpetually the Lord bless you dear friends for Christ's sake our men and I don't know about you

33:54but if you're a Christian I want to step inside that kind of pleading and say for the place where I serve maiden power Baptist church Lord will you make your eye and your heart to be toward us and your presence to be with us to bless us and to keep us and I pray the same for the churches of the people who are listening to this podcast that your guard would be pleased to pour out his favours upon the churches which truly own his name so do pray for us as we pray together for the glory and the honor of Christ in the hearts of his people and in the churches which he is established and in the places where we gather to praise and to pray to preach to proclaim the name of Jesus Christ please take that away with you and please join us again next time if the Lord spares us for sermon 2074 on intimate knowledge of the Holy Spirit thank you once again for listening

34:55and may we go away going on praying to this God our man