Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1350
“Quicken me according to Your Word.” Psalm 119:25.
You will frequently find David uttering this petition. It is a favorite prayer of his, “Quicken me, O Lord!” And, as David was like the rest of us—indeed, his experience is the mirror of the experience of all Believers—you may depend upon it, we all have a great need to pray as he did, “Quicken me, O Lord!” If he felt a coldness and deadness frequently stealing over him, so do we. Did he find it hard to endure such a wretched state? So ought we, also, to loathe and abhor it. And as he cried to the Strong for strength and knew that quickening must come from God, we ought to know—I trust we know—the same resource under the same necessity. Therefore, let it be our prayer now and let the prayer be repeated often—“Quicken me, O Lord, according to Your Word.”
How are we to understand this quickening? It means, of course, making alive, keeping alive, and giving more life— in a word, enlivening. He was alive—he was a spiritual man, or else he would not have asked for life. Dead men never pray, “Quicken me.” It is a sign that there is life, already, when a man is able to say, “Give me life, O Lord!” This is not the prayer of the unconverted! It is the prayer of a man who is already regenerate and has the love of God in his soul— “Quicken me, O Lord, according to Your Word.” Quickening, of course, comes to us, first, by regeneration. It is then that we receive spiritual life. And as there is no natural life in the world except that of which God is the Author, so assuredly in the new world there is no spiritual life except that which God has created.
The first quickening is that which comes upon us when we begin to feel our need of a Savior, when we begin to perceive the preciousness of that Savior and when, with a feeble finger, we touch the hem of the Savior’s garment. Then are we quickened into newness of life! But that spiritual life needs to be kept alive. It is like the life of a fire which must be fed with fuel and supported with air. It is like our natural life which needs food to sustain it and needs to breathe the atmosphere in order to its continuance. We are as much creatures of God’s power in our continuing to live as in our commencing to live! And, spiritually, we owe as much to Divine Grace that we remain Believers as that we became Believers. As soon as we get spiritual life, this prayer is most proper as a sacred instinct, “Lord, continue this life in my soul, continue to quicken me, for, if You do not, I have no life in myself apart from You and I would die were I severed from You, as does a branch when severed from the vine. Continue therefore, good Lord, to quicken me.”
Obviously, too, some special invigoration and excitement of life must be implied here. The trees, all through the winter, are alive. Their substance is in them when they cast their leaves. The vitality is not extinct, though our poet of “The Seasons” does sing—
“How dead the vegetable kingdom lies: How dumb the tuneful choir!”
A Divine act of power secretly maintains the life, hidden away till spring comes. Then the chains of frost are broken, the genial warmth begins to light upon the sealed buds, the sap flows and the trees, in their reviving tints and bursting buds, give such promise of returning foliage and flower that in a very special sense they may be said to be quickened. As soon as the sap begins to rise, the buds swell, the leaves unwrap themselves and the concealed flowers gradually open—a quickening comes over what was alive and what had been kept alive all through its dreary, wintry time.
So, Beloved, you see, first of all, God gives us life then He maintains life. And then, at times and seasons, (would to God they were more frequent and without intermission!), He gives vigor to that life so that it becomes more manifest and mighty. And then it is that in a conspicuous manner the quickening is seen. I would to God that He would lead some poor sinner to pray in the very first sense of the word, “Lord, quicken me! Give me life!” It would be a sign that life was coming! I would that every Christian would incessantly pray the prayer in the second sense—“Quicken me, Lord”—that is, “Continually keep me faithful and true to Your Word.” And then, thirdly, I would that we would all go on to the
third sense and say, “Lord, inspirit me, revive me, lift me up unto a higher life. Fill me with more of Your Holy Spirit and so make me more truthful and more like Your ever living Son Jesus, who has life in Himself.”
Having thus introduced to you the prayer, I would use the Psalm to explain it—to explain, rather, the experience which commends the prayer to our constant use. First, Brothers and Sisters, I would assign some reasons why you need quickening. Secondly, I would point out some motives to see it. Thirdly, we shall mention some ways in which it is worked. And, fourthly, we will suggest pleas such as the Psalmist used, for obtaining it.