Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1049
“For yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities.” Psalm 141:5.
THIS is a very difficult passage in the original and it is hard to fix its meaning with absolute certainty. However, it is no business of mine, at the present, to go into the various interpretations which have been given, for I am aiming at something else. I am, for my immediate purpose, quite content with the authorized version. The meaning given to the passage by our translators is this—David says although the righteous man should rebuke him most sternly so as to strike his conscience and bring before him his wrong-doing—and even though he should do this with considerable severity, yet he would not be displeased with him. He would love him all the better, be thankful to him for having acted so faithfully, and he would prove his love by continuing to pray for his reprover, should the good man at any time be overtaken by calamity.
David would always give his honest censor a warm place in his prayers. Now, if this is the meaning, and I think it is, it shows us that David was in the habit of praying for the saints. If he had not been, he would not have said that even in their calamities his prayers should go up for them. He had made it his daily custom to bring before his God in his private prayers the names of God’s righteous ones, or else, I say, he would not have made the remark that even if some of them should rebuke him and reprove him sternly, he still would continue to pray for them.
Our subject this morning shall be the high duty of intercession, a duty all too little regarded in these days. We shall speak upon it, first, as the text would lead us to do, in reference to saints, and, secondly, we shall urge it upon you on behalf of sinners.
I. First, then, we have to speak upon the duty of INTERCESSORY FOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD. To arrange our thoughts in some order we will take for our first keynote the word obligation. It is incumbent upon every child of God to pray for the rest of the sacred family. Does not Nature, itself, teach us this? I mean not the old nature, but the new nature created within us by the Holy Spirit. Did you not find, my Brethren, as soon as you were yourselves possessors of Divine life, that you began without any exhortation to pray for others? Your very first believing cries began with, “Our Father which are in Heaven,” and so included others besides yourself.
Among the earliest prayers which a renewed heart offers will be one for the man through whose agency it was brought to Jesus. No new convert forgets to pray for the minister who was the instrument of his conversion. The newly delivered soul also pleads for others who are still in the deplorable condition from which Grace has enabled it to escape. “You have brought my soul out of prison, Lord, set my fellow captives free. In Your loving kindness enable others to taste the sweetness of Your salvation.” Then the Christian people who have at any time conversed with the convert, who have ministered to his comfort or instruction, will be sure to obtain a share in his prayers—for a renewed heart is a tenderly grateful heart—and a man is not born-again from above who feels no thankfulness to earnest friends below.
Set a bird free from a cage and it will sing you its thanks as it speeds forth into the air! Even thus, if you are enabled to open the prison doors of bandaged spirits, they will repay your loving efforts with prayer. I say it is a natural instinct of the new-born Believer to begin to intercede for others, and this instinct continues with him throughout his life. It is one of the things that he must do—it is a pleasure for him to do it—it would be impossible for him to utterly cease from it, for the indwelling Spirit in his bosom makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
And, Brothers and Sisters, as it is an instinct of the Heaven-born nature, so it is a law of the elect household. The saints in their due order may be described as “praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.” Every Believer has a watchman’s place appointed him in the matter of prayer and he is bound not to be silent, but to give the Lord no rest till He establish and make Jerusalem a praise in the
earth. We are all equally bound to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and our prosperity is made to hinge upon it. The new commandment which the Lord has given us, in which He bids us, “love one another,” necessitates our praying for each other. How shall a man claim that he loves his brother if he never intercedes with God for him?
Can I live continually with my fellow-Believers and see their sorrows, and never cry to God on their behalf? Can I observe their poverty, their tribulation, their temptation, their heaviness of heart and yet forget them in my supplications? Can I see their work of faith and labor of love and never implore a blessing upon them? Can I wrap up myself within myself and be indifferent to the cares of those who are my Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus? Impossible! But if I can, I must belong to some other family than that of God, for in the family of love common sympathy leads to constant intercession. God forbid that we should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for our Brethren! Every bee in the hive of the Church should bring in its own share of this honey to the common store. As all the roots of a tree traverse the earth for nutriment and all suck in provision for the benefit of all, so should each Believer with open mouth of prayer search out and drink in spiritual blessings for the benefit of the whole Church. Forget not, then, my Brethren, the sweet obligation under which you are laid by your relationship to the saints and their ever-blessed Lord.