Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1337
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, January 21, 1877
“Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but You have, in love to my soul, delivered it from the pit of corruption: for You have cast all my sins behind Your back” Isaiah 38:17.
HEZEKIAH’S recovery is a notable encouragement to prayer. If ever there was a case in the world where it seemed impossible that prayer could be of any use, it was that of Hezekiah. It was perceivable by everybody around him that he was sick unto death. Why, then, think of prayer? The case was fatal. Would it not expose prayer to derision if such a matter were taken before the Mercy Seat? Moreover, God’s own Word, spoken by His servant the Prophet, had been given—“Set your house in order, for you shall die, and not live.” What could be the use of prayer after that? Might it not be regarded as an impertinent interference with the known will of the Lord?
Yet, Brothers and Sisters, the proverb says that hunger breaks through stone walls—and so the desire to live, on the king’s part—drove him to pray! Through all arguments and reasonings did Hezekiah’s prayer break its way to the Throne of God. He turned his face to the wall in more than one sense on that occasion, for it seemed as if a wall stood in the front of him and shut out all hope of life. Yet he turned his face to it and prayed his way through it! Mark well his success. Fifteen years longer did he live in answer to his entreaties!
Brothers and Sisters, pray if you are between the jaws of death and Hell! Pray, Brothers and Sisters, if all hope seems to be utterly slain! Yes, and if you can put your finger on passages of God’s own Word which apparently condemn you, still pray! Whether your fears have contorted those threatening passages or not, though many of them frown upon you, still pray! Perish with your hands on the horn of the altar even if you must perish! Never believe your case to be utterly hopeless so long as you can plead with God! There can be no hurt come of your supplication, but good must come of it in some form or other.
If God does not prolong life in answer to prayer, as He often may not or nobody would ever die, yet still He may give a greater blessing than continued earthly existence! And if it is a greater blessing, in God’s judgment, it is better for us to receive it than to have the precise thing we have craved! In all cases, “pray without ceasing.” The Mercy Seat once stood within the veil where none could approach it except at one set season in the year—but now the veil is torn from top to bottom and you may come to it when you will! Therefore I charge you come boldly unto the Throne of the heavenly Grace in every time of need!
Yes, draw near in the darkest night and in the most wintry season! Draw near when God seems to have forgotten to be gracious and when you think He will no more be favorable. “Men ought always to pray and not to faint.” Pray in the teeth of difficulty. Pray though impossibility seems to stand in the way. Pray against death and the devil. Pray like Manasseh in the low dungeon and like Jonah out of the belly of the whale! Pray against conscience and carnal reason—I was going to say even pray against your terrifying interpretation of God’s Word, itself—for you must surely have misread it if you have thought that it forbids you to pray!
It cannot be so, since Jehovah’s glorious memorial is that He is the God that hears prayer! He has never said to the seed of Jacob, “Seek you My face in vain.” He may say and He knows His own meaning when He says it, “You shall die, and not live,” and yet He may afterwards declare, “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears: behold, I will add unto your days 15 years.” He will be favorable unto the voice of your supplication! That lesson having been learned, we shall now proceed to consider Hezekiah’s prayer in detail. God grant that from his experience we may derive instruction and, if in its bitterness we have already had fellowship with the royal supplicant, may the Lord grant unto us to have communion with him in the sweeter part of it, so that we, also, may feel our souls brought up from the pit of corruption to celebrate the praises of our pardoning God!
I see in the text three things to think about at this time—the first is a healthy bitterness—“Behold, for peace I had great bitterness.” The second is delivering love—“But You have in love to my soul, delivered it from the pit of corruption.” And the third is absolute pardon—“You have cast all my sins behind Your back.”
Before, however, I divided my text, I ought to have given you another translation of it. Not that I would readily find fault with our version at any time, for it is, as a rule, marvelously correct and singularly forcible. But I am afraid when the new translation of the Bible comes out, it will be better to light our fires with it than to give up the old version, which is so dear to us and so interwoven into all our religious life. I trust our grandfather’s Bible will maintain its hold on the mind of the English public against all comers, for it is so simple and yet so sublime, so homely and yet so heavenly in style.