Prayers: Always Our Helper
Always Our Helper
O God, Thou art our God. Early in life many of us were brought to put our trust in Thee, and since then Thou hast been our God in many and many an experience. We have been in troubles often, but Thou hast always been our Helper. We have been in danger, but He that keepeth Israel hath neither slumbered nor slept. We can truly say this morning, "Because Thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice." What a God Thou hast been to us in our experience—so tender over our weakness, ever teaching us little by little as we have been able to bear it; so long-suffering with our follies, chastening only in measure, and comforting without measure.
Lord, Thou hast heard our prayers, even when we have hardly thought they could be answered. We have been unbelieving, but Thou hast been faithful. We have been undeserving, but Thy grace has never failed. There are many of us present who have known Thee now as long as Israel knew Thee in the wilderness, these forty years, and never once hast Thou failed to keep Thy promise, or to remember Thy people for good. May our faith grow exceedingly. May we that have had experience of Thy goodness, feel ashamed ever to entertain a doubt, and when the dark thought ever crosses our mind which would make us mistrust, may we chase it as a strange and vain thought, which must not even lodge, much less dwell, within our hearts. "The Lord liveth, and blessed be my Rock"—strong to keep His promise, unchanging, unexhausted, ever the eternal Fountain of good things to His waiting peoples. We pray, O Lord, that those who have not believed in Thee, may take courage from the experience of Thy people to be assured that Thou wilt keep them also. There may be some here just beginning to believe—little children—the Lord strengthen them. May they feel no hesitation in committing their souls to the keeping of the great God. May they come to Thee, our Father, through Jesus Christ Thy Son, and now believe, and leave the future, the past, the present—leave everything—with Thee. We do heartily pray Thee for some here present who are not far from the Kingdom, who have been upon the verge of believing for months, but they think it is a venture, they are afraid lest they may not believe, though Thou dost command them: may they come and taste and see that the Lord is good, for blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee.
Look in great mercy upon Thy people gathered here. Some of them are full of joy. Thou hast sown their sky with stars. Their way is bright with inward joy and with surrounding comforts. May they not begin to worship their comforts, nor kiss their hands to the stars, nor begin to make a god of the things around them. O Lord, keep Thy people in the hour of prosperity. May our hearts never wander from the living God, and may we walk as much by faith in the unseen as we should do if we were in the dark. But many of Thy people here are in quite another case. Some of us are in pain. Oh help us to forget we have a body. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Help us to rise above the flesh. Some here are remembering household troubles. Enable them not to forget them, but to feel that they come from the Father's hand, and that He must have a good intent in them. So may they accept the bitter cup, and as they drink it, may the cup of consolation be set to their lips. Remember some that are at this moment remembering the dead, unburied yet. Their sorrows are green. O God, send new comfort where Thou hast sent fresh grief. Deal graciously with us, O Lord, whatever our circumstances may be. It may be our trouble is not without, but within—"Some deep sense of sin renewed; This will work us lasting good" if we carry it not too far.
It may be we have had great battles of late with Satan, with some old corruption. Make us victorious. It may be that some one of Thy promises, even, has been too great for us, and we have scarcely been able to believe it. O God, visit Thy people. What strange creatures we are! The little world within has its summer and its winter, its heartquakes, its tornadoes, its storms. Great Master, govern the world of our inner nature as Thou dost govern the world of nature, and may we conquer yet. May we yet come into the certainties, where the birds sit on the waves and all is still. We shall come there we know in heaven, but even now give us the peace of God which passeth all understanding, the perfect rest of conquered self, and of simple confidence in Thee. Why art thou troubled; why art Thou cast down, O my soul, why art Thou disquieted within me? Bring Thy people again to the hill Mizar and to the land of the Hermonites; and yet again may they praise Him, who is the health of their countenance and their God. As a church, we want the presence of God more fully. We pray that this week, during the Mission that is to be held, many may be brought in who are far from God in moral conduct, and be converted. May they give up the drink, but may they also give up all sin, by being created anew in Christ Jesus by the Holy Ghost. O God, continue to add to our number, for many have gone home to heaven, and many are growing old, and in the ordinary course of things will not be long with us. Lord add to us at the one end, as Thou dost diminish at the other. Bring in our children, bring many to the Sabbath school. Bring in the young men and women. Bring in the outsiders who live near this place, and yet never enter it. May they come and hear for eternity, and may their souls live. We wish, O God, with all our hearts, that this church and its many branches and schools, its college and orphanage, its evangelists and colporteurs, might all be under the divine benediction. O Lord, we have an agency, and a great machinery, but we must have the power. Come, Holy Spirit: we adore Thee from the bottom of our hearts, and we pray Thee to work mightily with Thy people, that work may be done and Christ may be glorified. Save, we pray Thee, those now present to-day who have not yet tasted that the Lord is gracious. Save them now. May a second thought drop into their hearts, and work there like a fire spot, setting their sin alight that it may be consumed. May many be so impressed this morning as never to forget, but to turn to God with full purpose of heart. O my Lord, continue to give me fruit among this people. I beseech Thee, bring my hearers to be obedient to Christ. Thy people are praying with me now, as with one heart—Lord save the ungodly! Save those, also, who are hearers but have never felt the divine power with the word. Save them now even this day.
Bless our country. God be pleased to rule and overrule. Give peace and quietness among all ranks and conditions of men. God bless those who rule among us. May the Queen be the special object of Thy divine power. May the blessing of God rest on all our foreign relations. May God bless the United States, and the myriads of our brethren there, and all the scattered in every nation that fear God. Best of all, come, O Thou great King of all the earth! Son of God, make haste to come. We pray Thee, appear and be glorified in the eyes of men, and reign among Thy nations, and end the world's strife and sin. We ask it for Thy glory's sake. Amen.
October 12, 1890.