Prayers: Come Nearer, Nearer, Nearer!
Come Nearer, Nearer, Nearer!
O God, Thou art our God, and therefore do we seek unto Thee. We have a covenant interest in Thee. Thou hast given Thyself to us of old in the person of Thy dear Son. Thou art our Surety. Thou, O Saviour, didst stand for us in the transactions of eternity. Thou didst also redeem us in the fullness of time, laying down Thy life that we might live, and now Thou art All-in-All to us. Our life is not in ourselves, but in Thee. Our truest and best self is Christ, for we live not, save only as our "life is hid with Christ in God."
Lord, we want this morning to enter into closest possible fellowship with Thyself. In days gone by Thou hast cast Thy skirt over Thy servants. In the shadow of Thy wing we have rejoiced. In the light of Thy countenance we have been ready to die of excessive joy. The coming near to us of our God has been heaven, it is indeed all the heaven we expect in the future, as it is all we have known in the past. Come near, O our God, come nearer, nearer, nearer. Still some secret to our heart reveal, as yet undiscovered. Thou hast led some of us into darkness and not into light, and Thou hast covered us in the night watches and made it darkness round about us, till our spirit sank within us. Now it is Thy way to bring light out of darkness, and joy out of sorrow. Oh, make our joy to-day to be like Jabez, of whom we read that he was more honourable than his brethren because his mother bare him with sorrow. Oh, that the sorrow pang might bring forth to-day in Thy people some new joys, some blessed novelty of fellowship, that we may enter yet more and more into the secret places and tabernacles of the Most High, and dwell beneath the shadow of the Almighty. O Lord, Thy people want this; nothing can so strengthen comfort, lighten, sanctify and perfect us as this. Are we earth bound? Oh, for Thy presence, and we shall be of a heavenly mind. Are we deeply depressed in spirit? Oh, for the light of Thy countenance, for it shall make us gladder than a wedding day. Oh that we might get at Thee, our God, for then shall the bonds of this world seem like cobwebs and disappear.
If Thou be near us, we can do or bear, we can suffer or we can sing; all things are possible when the Omnipotent is within. If the all-sufficient God shall but reveal Himself to us, we care not what our circumstances are. Then are we rich when Christ is near. Then are we full of joy and strength when He draweth near to His servants. Peradventure, some have come here from a week of great anxiety. Help them to be anxious no longer, to cast their care on the Lord. Oh, let not the sheep take to shepherdising, but may they leave the Shepherd to do His own work for them. Oh, deliver Thy people from attempting to rule the world. Let us not want to drive our Father's horses, but be satisfied to ride with Him. Some of Thy children may have come here in conscious sin; they know they are Thine but they equally know they are not what they ought to be. Thy presence can light them up; it can spiritualise, it can purify; and they shall feel in the presence of God that the Lord hath sanctified them by His truth and Himself.
O Lord, we have heard of some that can look back upon their lives with pleasure and satisfaction, but we wish to look nowhere but to Thee, our Saviour. Thou art our Wisdom—not our experience: Thou art our Righteousness—not our good deeds and almsgivings; Thou art our sanctification—not our prayers and watchings. Thou art everything to us, and we are just nothing. We were nothing when Thou didst begin with us, when we lay wallowing in the blood, cast out in death in the open field to perish. Then didst Thou say "Live," and we lived by virtue of that word, and by that word of God shall men live, and so do we live. O Lord, Thou art emptying us from vessel to vessel. Thou art letting us see the dregs of our depravity and the violence of our nature; and we loathe ourselves till we are ready to cry, "Bury my dead out of my sight! "Yet this we do know, that in Christ we are lovely, and comely, and Thou seest no sin in Jacob, neither iniquity in Israel. Thou dost delight Thyself in Thy people; Thou hast loved them with an everlasting love, therefore hast Thou drawn them; therefore dost Thou draw them; and therefore wilt Thou draw them, till Thou hast drawn them to perfection in Thyself, to dwell with Thee for ever.
O Redeemer of our spirits, visit Thy people this day! Thou art our next of kin; be not strange unto Thine own flesh. Thou hast laid down Thy life for us: what value dost Thou set upon us! Let us be precious in Thy sight and honourable, because Thou hast loved us; and may we know it to-day. Take every doubt from the heart of Thy people; let not a single thought of mistrust abide with any one of us. May we just lean on Christ as hard as we can, with a full weight of weakness and sin and sorrow, and just swoon away into the eternal love, and there lie passive in His hand. To know no will but His, nor active be until He makes us so by His own power.
Bless Thy ministering servants before Thee. The Lord fill them full of His truth, with power to speak it. Oh that we might be clear at the last 1 The Lord look upon the many that there are nowadays that are preaching another gospel, that is not another, and let a blast and confusion from the Eternal go out against those who undermine the essential doctrines of Thy word. O God, we grow negligent often in our prayers as we cry out before Thee against those who would rob Thy Son of His deity, His precious blood of its value, sinners of their only hope, who even dare to blot out the terrible threatenings of Thy Word, and make sin to be such a trifle as to be scarcely worth mentioning. Oh raise up a race of true preachers, we beseech Thee. O God of Wesley and Whitefield, let not the breed die out. May we have again men that can thunder when God would have them be like a tempest, but can speak with soft and gentle words when God would find a Barnabas to comfort the sons of men. O God of the Eternal Truth, let the old doctrine yet prevail, and may those that hate it be put to the rout.
Lord save the world, we pray Thee, with the Gospel; let it go forth even to the ends thereof. Let these lands know the power of Christ, and the great land across the Atlantic, and that other country on the other side of the world where they dwell of our kith and kin, and every race of man. Oh that Christ might be King of kings openly, as we know He is secretly, and let the whole earth bow at His feet, and pay homage unto Him who wore the crown of thorns and surrendered hands and feet to the nails. Oh for His glory! Oh for His glory! Oh for ten thousand thousand hearts for Him! Oh for nations to come and pay homage to Him who hath given His life for men. Our heart and flesh cry out to Thee on behalf of the Well-beloved. Why tarriest Thou, our Father, in rewarding Thy Son? His work is finished, but He hath not yet seen of the full travail of His soul. Pluck Thy right hand from Thy bosom, O Thou Eternal God, and give Thy Son yet the precious reward of His Passion. Hasten it, we pray Thee. Come quickly, even so, come quickly! All Thy people cry to Thee. Why tarriest Thou? The wheels move so tardily. The Gospel spreads so slowly. Oh for the days of the Son of man in the glory of His second Advent! We ask it for His Name's sake. Amen.
September 14, 1884.