Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1377
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, October 7, 1877
“There is none that calls upon Your name, that stirs up himself to take hold of You.” Isaiah 64:7.
ISAIAH, in the chapter before us, describes a very mournful condition of the people of God. He feels the case to be so desperate that he sighs for a Divine interposition—“Oh that You would rend the heavens, that You would come down.” He perceives that the people are so steeped in slumber, so utterly under the power of their sins that unless God, Himself, shall descend with all the power and terror of Sinai, the nation will utterly perish through its iniquity, even as withered leaves are blown away by the fierce winds. He longed for a melting fire to dissolve their hard hearts—for a swift flame such as burns the brushwood on the mountain’s side to make a speedy end of their false confidences—and for a burning heat, such as makes waters boil, to remove the lukewarmness of those who professed to worship the Lord.
I do not know that the condition of the Church of God at the present time is quite so bad as that which is here described. It would be wrong to boast of our condition, but it would be worse to despair of it. It would not be honest to apply the words of our text to the Church of the present day. Blessed be God, we could not say, “There is none that calls upon Your name, that stirs up himself to take hold of You,” for there are many who plead day and night for the prosperity of Zion. Yet, in a measure, we are somewhat in the same plight as that which is described by the Prophet and there is much to mourn over. Prayer languishes in many Churches. Power in intercession is by no means a common attainment and Prayer Meetings, as a rule, are thinly attended and not much thought of. Sin abounds, empty profession is common, hypocrisy is plentiful and the life of God in the soul is but little esteemed.
Notice carefully that according to our text the Prophet traces much of the evil which he deplored to the lack of prayer. After he has compared their righteousnesses to filthy rags, he adds, “there is none that calls upon Your name, that stirs up Himself to take hold of You.” When there is a degeneracy of public manners, you may be sure that there is, also, a serious decline of secret devotion. When the outward service of the Church begins to flag and her holiness declines, you may be sure that her communion with God has been sadly suspended. Devotion to God will be found to be the basis of holiness and the buttress of integrity. If you backslide in secret before God, you will soon err in public before men.
You may judge yourselves, my dear Hearers, as to your spiritual state, by the condition of your hearts in the matter of prayer. How are you at the Mercy Seat? For that is what you really are. Are the consolations of God small with you? That is a minor matter. Look deeper—is there not a restraining of prayer before the living God? Do you find yourself weak in the presence of temptation? That is important—but search below the surface and you will find that you have grown lax in supplication and have failed to keep up continual communion with God.
The Prophet, also, reveals the very essence and soul of prayer is a stirring up of one’s self to take hold of God. If in prayer we do not take hold of God we have prayed but feebly, if at all. The very soul of devotion lies in realizing the Divine Presence, in dealing with God as a real Person, in firm confidence in His faithfulness—in a word—in ” taking hold of Him.” Men do not take hold of a shadow. They cannot grasp the unsubstantial fabric of a dream. Taking hold implies something real which we grasp and there is needed, to make prayer truthful and acceptable with God, the grip and grasp of a tenacious faith which believes the fact that God is and that He is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek
Him.
Taking hold implies a reverent familiarity with the Lord by which we use a holy force to win a blessing from His hands. It was because there was so little of this in Israel that the nation had fallen into so forlorn a state. And if you trace up the evils of the Church of the present day to their source, it will come to this—that there are so few who stir up themselves to take hold upon the living God, so few who grapple with spiritual matters in downright earnest and bring
them before the Lord with resolute faith. We have few Elijahs, now, and Jacobs are hard to find. Why, look, Sirs, there are many whose religion is nothing but a mere outward performance! It consists in attendance upon a place of worship so many times on the Sabbath, the reading of prayers in the family, the repetition of a form of devotion night and morning and, perhaps, the mechanical reading of a chapter in the Bible. But there is no consciousness that God is near, no conversation with Him, no taking hold upon Him!