Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2053
“Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer and attend to the voice of my supplications. In the day of my trouble I will call upon You: for You will answer me.” Psalm 86:6, 7.
WHEN I was reading this eighty-sixth Psalm, I reminded you that the title of it is “A prayer of David.” It is rightly named “A prayer,” for it is very especially filled with supplication. There are four other Psalms each called by the name Tephillah, or “prayer,” but this deserves to be distinguished from the rest and known as “the prayer of David,” even as the ninetieth Psalm is known as “the prayer of Moses.” It savors of David. The man of sincerity, of ardor, of trials, of faults and of great heart, pleads, sobs and trusts through all the verses of this Psalm.
Note one thing about this remarkable prayer of David—it is almost entirely devoid of poetry. Men use grand, studied, rapturous and poetical expressions in their praises. And they do well. Let God be praised with the noblest thoughts as well as the most charming music. But when a man comes to prayer—and that prayer is out of the depths of sorrow— he has no time or thought for poetry. He goes straight at the matter in hand and pleads with God in downright plainness of speech. You shall notice that in happy prayers, in times of joy, men use similes and metaphors and tropes and symbols and the like. But when it comes to wrestling with God in times of agony—there is no beauty of speech—parable and prose are laid aside.
The man’s language is in sackcloth and ashes. Or, better still, it stands stripped for wrestling, every superfluous word being laid aside. Then the cry is heard, “I will not let You go, except You bless me.” That is not poetry, but it is a great deal better. Throughout this Psalm David is a plain-dealer, speaking with God in downright earnest. He has got his grip of the Covenant angel and he will not let him go. Men cannot study where to put their feet prettily when they are wres-tling—they have to do the best they can to hold their ground and fling their antagonist. In such a prayer-Psalm as this there is no studying of language—it is the pouring out of the heart as the heart boils over—the utterance of the desires as they bubble up from the sod’s deeps with an entire carelessness as to the fashion of the expression.
This ought to be a hint to you when you pray. Do not study how to arrange your words when you come before the Lord. Leave the expression to the occasion—it shall be given you in the same hour what you shall speak. When your heart is like a boiling geyser, let it steam aloft in pillars of prayer. The overflowing of the soul is the best praying in the world. Prayers that are indistinct, inharmonious, broken, made up of sighs and cries and damped with tears—these are the prayers which win with Heaven. Prayers that you cannot pray, pleadings too big for utterance—prayers that stagger the words and break their backs and crush them down—these are the very best prayers that God ever hears.
So you say, dear Friends, that you cannot pray. You are so troubled that you cannot speak. Well, then, copy the beggars in the street. They must not beg, for that is contrary to law. But a man sits down and writes on a spade, “I am starving,” and he looks as white as a sheet. What a picture of misery! He is not begging. Not he. But the money comes dropping into the old hat. So, when you cannot pray, I believe that your silent display of utter inability is the best sort of praying. The blessing comes when we sit down before the Lord and in sheer desperation expose our spiritual need. I am not going to dwell longer upon that matter but will simply show you what was the nature of David’s prayer.
There are two things which David must have when he prays—two great things after which he strains with his whole heart. The first is personal dealings with God. Read that sixth verse—“Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer. And attend to the voice of my supplications.” And, in the second place he must have personal answers from God. He is not content to
pray without prayer having some practical result. So, the seventh verse is, “In the day of my trouble I will call upon You: for You will answer.”
I. First, then, David in his prayer sought, beyond all things, to have PERSONAL DEALINGS WITH GOD. To my mind that is the distinction between prayer before conversion and prayer after it. I often bring that out when I am seeing enquirers who have been religiously brought up. This is the sort of dialogue we hold—“You used to pray, did you?” “Yes, Sir. I could not have gone to sleep if I had not said my prayers.” “Was there any difference between that kind of praying and what you now practice?” The reply usually is, “Well, Sir, I do not now call the first, praying, at all. I used to say some good words that I had been taught but I did not say them to anybody. Now I speak to God and I have the feeling that He is hearing what I say and that He is present with me in my room.”