“Ignite a flame in our hearts that we may not neglect you,
but pursue you with everything we have.”
The final request to God from Dr. R.C. Sproul (1939-2017) In his concluding prayer from his last sermon, “A Great Salvation”, to the congregation at St. Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, FL on November 26, 2017
I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed:
“Oh Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with all
who love him and obey his commands, we have sinned and done wrong. We
have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands
and laws. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in
your name to our kings, our princes and our fathers, and to all the people
of the land.
“Lord, you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame—the men
of Judah and people of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far,
in all the countries where you have scattered us because of our unfaithfulness
to you. O Lord, we and our kings, our princes and our fathers are covered with
shame because we have sinned against you.
The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him; we have not obeyed
the Lord our God or kept the laws he gave us through his servants the prophets.
All Israel has transgressed your law and turned away, refusing to obey you.
“Therefore the curses and sworn judgments written in the Law of Moses, the servant
of God, have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against you. You have
fulfilled the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us great
disaster. Under the whole heaven nothing has ever been done like what has been done
to Jerusalem. Just as it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has
come upon us, yet we have not sought the favor of the Lord our God by turning from our
sins and giving attention to your truth. The Lord did not hesitate to bring the
disaster upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in everything he does; yet we have
not obeyed him.
“Now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand and
who made for yourself a name that endures to this day, we have sinned, we have done
wrong. O Lord, in keeping with all your righteous acts, turn away your anger and your
wrath from Jerusalem, your city, your holy hill. Our sins and the iniquities of our
fathers have made Jerusalem and your people an object of scorn to all those around us.
“Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant. For your sake, O Lord,
look with favor on your desolate sanctuary. Give ear, O God, and hear; open your
eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your Name. We do not make requests
of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, listen! O Lord,
forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For your sake, O my God, do not delay, because your city and
your people bear your Name.”
Daniel 9: 4-19
Give ear to my words, O Lord,
consider my sighing.
Psalm 5:1
“It is certain that the greater part of men, as they babble out vain, languid, and inefficacious prayers, most unworthy the ear of the blessed God, so they seem in some degree to set a just estimate upon them, neither hoping for any success from them, nor indeed seeming to be at all solicitous about it, but committing them to the mind as vain words, which in truth they are. But far be it from a wise and pious man, that he should so foolishly and coldly trifle in so serious an affair; his prayer has a certain tendency and scope, at which he aims with assiduous and repeated desires, and doth not only pray that he may pray, but that he may obtain an answer; and as he firmly believes that it may be obtained, so he firmly, and constantly, and eagerly urges his petition, that he may not flatter himself with an empty hope.”
Robert Leighton, D.D.(1611-1684)
The Treasury of David Classic Reflections on the Wisdom of the Psalms
by Charles H Spurgeon page 49.
Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God,
for to you I pray.
Morning by morning, O Lord, you hear my voice;
morning by morning I lay my requests before you
and wait in expectation.
Psalm 5:2-3
“If you do not believe, why do you pray? And if you believe, why do you not expect? By praying you seem to depend on God; by not expecting, you again renounce your confidence. What is this, but to take his name in vain? O Christian, stand to your prayer in a holy expectation of what you have begged upon the credit of promise…. Mordecai, no doubt, had put up many prayers for Esther, and therefore he waits at the king’s gate, looking what answer God would in his providence give thereunto.
Do thou likewise.”
William Gurnall (1616-1679)
The Treasury of David Classic Reflections on the Wisdom of the Psalms
by Charles H Spurgeon page 51.
Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Matthew 7:7,8
…”Well,” saith the Lord, “you have only to ask and have; ye have not because ye ask not;
you have only to seek and you will be sure to find, for holy things, like rare pearls, are to be discovered if you look for them:
you have only to knock and spiritual secrets shall open to you, even the innermost truth of God.”
…ask as a beggar petitions for alms. They say that begging is a poor trade, but when you ply it well with God no other trade is so profitable.
Men get more by asking than by working without prayer.
Though I do not discommend working, yet I most highly commend praying.
Nothing under heaven pays like prevailing prayer.
He that has power in prayer has all things at his call. Ask as a poor mendicant who is hungry and pleads for bread.
Then seek as a merchant who hunts for goodly pearls, looking up and down, anxious to give all that he has that he may win a matchless treasure.
Seek as a servant carefully looking after his master’s interests and labouring to promote them.
Seek with all diligence, adding to the earnestness of the beggar the careful watchfulness of the jeweller who is seeking for a gem.
Conclude all by knocking at mercy’s door as a lost traveller caught out on a cold night in a blinding sleet knocks for shelter that he may not perish in the storm.
When you have reached the gate of salvation ask to be admitted by the great love of God, then look well to see the way of entering, seeking to enter in; and if still the door seem(s) shut against you,
knock right heavily, and continue knocking till you are safely lodged within the home of love.
An excerpt from a sermon entitled “Knock!” May 27, 1883
by Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)
From: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 29
The Cinderella of the church of today is the prayer meeting. This handmaid of the Lord is unloved and unwooed because she is not dripping with the pearls of intellectualism, nor glamorous with the silks of philosophy; neither is she enchanting with the tiara of psychology. She wears the homespuns of sincerity and humility and so is not afraid to kneel! Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994)