THE MASTER KEY—OPENING THE GATE OF HEAVEN – Charles Spurgeon
THE MASTER KEY—OPENING THE GATE OF HEAVEN
Introduction
“And You said, I will surely do you good.” Genesis 32:12. The possession of a God, or the non-possession of a God, makes the greatest possible difference between man and man. Esau is a princely being, but he is “a profane person.” Jacob is a weak, fallible, frail creature, but he has a God. Have you not heard of “the mighty God of Jacob”? There are many wise, careful, prudent men of the world who have no God, and truly, these in the highest sense, like the young lions, lack and suffer hunger, for their highest nature is left to famish. Those who wait upon the Lord are often very simple and devoid of ability and policy, but they shall not lack any good thing—their highest nature is well supplied from heavenly sources. This is the great difference between the two races which people the world—I mean the sons of men who say in their hearts, “No God,” and the sons of God, the twice-born, who have received new life and, therefore, with heart and flesh cry out for God, even the living God! The child of this world inquires, “Where shall I flee from His Presence?” The child of Light cries, “O God, You are my God; early will I seek You.” There are thus two races of men who can never blend, either in this life or in that which is to come. Deep in their innermost nature lies a vital difference—they are of two distinct seeds. My dear Hearers, you can divide yourselves without difficulty by this rule—Have you a God, or have you none? If you have no God, what have you? If you have no God, what good have you to expect? What, indeed, can be good to you? If you have no God, how can you face the past, the present, or the future? But if you have God for your portion, your whole history is covered! The God of the past has blotted out your sin; the God of the present makes all things work for your good; the God of the future will never leave you nor forsake you! In God, you are prepared for every emergency. O Man, if the God of Jacob is your God, you shall be safe at night, though you may sleep as unguarded as the Patriarch at Bethel. And you shall be secure by day, though you may be met by Esau with his 400 men! You are safe In banishment though Laban is churlish—and safe in the midst of foes, though Canaanites thirst for your blood—for the Lord has said, “Touch not My anointed and do My Prophets no harm.” It matters not where you go if the God of Israel is with you and says to you, “Fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will go down with you; and I will also surely bring you up again.” He shall guard you from all evil—the Lord shall preserve your soul.
Jacob’s Prayer of Plea
Because Jacob had a God, therefore he went to Him in the hour of his trouble. He did not know how he should escape from his injured and angry brother, Esau. In fact, he believed that Esau had come on purpose to cut him up, root and branch, and so, after doing the best he could, Jacob looked to his best Friend and Helper, and cried unto his God! He who has a God will be sure to fly to Him in his distress. There is no use in having a God if you do not use Him. I am afraid that many professed Christians place their God afar off and never dream of going to Him for practical succor in the hour of danger. As well have no God, as have an unreal God who cannot be found in the midnight of our need! But what a blessing it is to be able to go to our God at all times and pour out our hearts before Him—for our God will be our Helper and that right early! He is our near and dear Friend in joy and in sorrow. Poor Jacob, in the calmer days of his life, had failed to walk with his God as his father, Abraham, had done. But now a storm has overtaken him and he flies to the Lord, his God, as a mariner puts into port to escape the tempest. Dear Friend, are you in trouble at this time and have you a God? Then go to Him in prayer at once and spread your case before Him. Have you a Rabshakeh’s letter in the house? Go, like Hezekiah, and spread it before the Lord! Have you a dying child? Then cry to the Lord as David did! Are you in the deeps with Jonah? Then let your prayer arise from the very bottoms of the mountains! Have you any bitterness in the vessel of your heart? Then pour it out before Him. Make good use of your God and especially gain the fullest advantage from Him by pleading with Him in prayer. In troublous times, our best communion with God will be carried on by supplication. Tell Him your case—search out His promise and then plead it with holy boldness. This is the best, the surest, the speediest way of relief.
God’s Word—Our Memorial and Power
What would some of us do if we had not a God to go to? Though we are not tried and troubled as some men are—and God has set a hedge about us—yet there are times in our life when we should die of a broken heart if we could not tell our griefs to God! Like Job, we could curse the day of our birth and wish that we had never been born if we were utterly bereft of God. We would look forward to annihilation as a hopeful thing if we could not speak with God, our evergracious Friend. But when we can get away to Him and tell out the whole matter—and lay hold upon Him by the hand of faith and plead His promise—then the darkened cloud withdraws and we come out into the light, again, and sing, “This God is our God forever and ever! He will be our Guide even unto death.”
Beloved, we see that Jacob had a God and that he made use of Him in prayer, but the point I want to call your attention to, at this time, is that the stress, the force, the very sinew of Jacob’s prayer consisted in his pleading the promise of God with God. When he came to real wrestling with the Lord, he cried, “You said.” That is the way to lay hold upon the Covenant Angel—“You said.” The art of wrestling lies much in a proper use of, “You said.” Jacob, with all his mistakes, was a master of the art of prayer—we justly call him, “wrestling Jacob.” He said, “I will not let You go.” He gets grip for his hands out of this, “You said.” With this he lays hold upon his unknown antagonist—a desperate hold which he will not relax, even though his sinews are made to shrink. “You said” is a good grip with which to hold an honest man and not less does it lay hold on our faithful God. This will have power over any honest person, for he that speaks truly will not run back from his promise. When we come to pleading terms with God, there is nothing that so helps us as to be able to quote the promise and plead, “You said.” In handling my text, which was Jacob’s prayer, I shall notice, first, that it ought to be our memorial, secondly, that it is God’s bond and, thirdly, that, therefore, we may make it our plea.
1. The Memorial of God’s Word
I. First, it ought to be OUR MEMORIAL. I mean, dear Friends, that we ought to remember, much more than we do, what God has said. If we had a silent God who, to this age, had never revealed Himself by actual speech. If it were given out at this hour that now, for the first time, God was about to make a promise, how eagerly would all God-fearing men desire to hear it—and how carefully would they treasure it up! Why, every syllable would be more precious than a pearl! The very tone of the utterance would be mystic music full of meaning. You would charge your memory to embalm each word—no, to preserve each syllable in all its living force and beauty. Whatever else you forgot, you would lay up every letter of the newly-spoken promise in the archives of your soul. Ought we not to treat God’s Word with equal reverence, though spoken ages ago, since it is a fact that He has spoken it? The Lord has often spoken from the foundations of the world by His Prophets—and in these last days by His Son— and we are bound to jealously guard every single Word which He has thus given to us. He has preserved His own Words in the Scriptures—let us preserve them in our hearts. No subjects in the world can be so worthy of the consideration, the memory, and the reverence of man as those upon which his Maker has deigned to give instruction. I ask you, therefore, Brothers and Sisters, if I say not rightly that God’s Divine, “You have said” should be our memorial? We should lay up His Word in our hearts as men lay up gold and gems in their vaults—it should be as dear to us as life itself. My heart stands in awe of God’s Word, but I am sorrowful because so many trifle with it. No good can come of irreverence towards Scripture—we ought to cherish it in our hearts of hearts. We ought to do this, first, with regard to what God has said.
2. God’s Promise as His Bond
It is an essential part of the education of a Christian to learn the promises. I always admire that fact in the life of General Gordon, who, whatever mistakes he made, was a grand Believer—a very Abraham among us in these latter days—that he always carried with him that little book called Clark’s “Precious promises,” which is an arrangement of the various promises of the Old and New Testaments under different heads. The General used to consult that collection of Divine promises and seek out that holy text which best suited his particular condition. Then he sought solitude and pleaded before the Lord that Inspired Word, believing that it was true and that the Lord would do as He had said. By faith, he looked for an answer and acted upon it! He went down through the Sudan alone, as you know, daring all manner of dangers because he believed in God. The heroism of his life grew out of his confidence in the promises. If we would be heroes, here is the food with which to sustain a noble life! I would have all Christian people know God’s promises.
3. Pleading God’s Promise in Prayer
We read all sorts of books, but many of them are unprofitable. As for a great part of current literature, one might as well open his mouth and eat the east wind, for there is nothing that can stay his soul therein. One single sentence from God is worth all the books of the Alexandrian library, or of the Bodleian! All that has been consumed of human literature and all that still exists, if put together, would not equal one book of the Bible! O my Hearer, get to know what the Lord has said and you will be on the way to wisdom! Within the compass of, “It is written,” lies Infinite Truth! If you are well instructed in it, it shall be well with you.
The Lord will never allow a slur to be cast upon His power, which is one part of His glorious name. He wills to make His power known and it is never according to His mind to leave that power in doubt. Once more, the Lord’s wisdom also holds Him to His promise. Men make engagements thoughtlessly and before long they realize that it would be ruinous to keep them. It is foolish to keep a foolish promise. Yet, because wisdom is not in us, we make mistakes and find ourselves in serious difficulties. It may so happen that a person may feel compelled to say, “I promised to do that which, upon more careful consideration, I find it would be wicked and unjust for me to do. My promise was void from the beginning, for no man has a right to promise to do wrong.” Whatever justification an erring man may find in his folly to excuse him from fulfilling his rash promise, nothing of the kind can occur with God! He never speaks without knowledge, for He sees the end from the beginning and He is infallibly good and wise. Therefore, I say unto you, again, what a hold we have upon God because of His Character!
Conclusion
Do you believe that God speaks the truth? If you do, you have living faith within you! Can you trust God to keep His promise? If you can, the work of Divine Grace has already begun in your soul! You are no dead sinner any longer. You are not under condemnation. “He that believes on Him has everlasting life.” You have a measure of that everlasting life within you at this moment because you have a measure of faith in God! Oh, for power, now, to turn that faith to practical use by an earnest, pleading prayer! “Lord, do as You have said!” Such a prayer will soon bring peace and rest to your soul. God bless you, dear Friends! I feel much pleasure in addressing you at this time. If I have exceeded the time, you may well excuse it, for I am not always well enough to address you. Oh, how I have wearied to be in my pulpit! I would ask nothing more of God than to give me bread and water and permit me to occupy this pulpit on every occasion when I ought to be here! But I cannot, as yet, get that privilege at His hands, for it is not a matter of promise. If He had said I should always be in good health, I am sure Satan, himself, could not make me ill! Having, therefore, no specific promise, I am satisfied to accept the general assurance that all things work together for good to them that love God. From this assurance I know that I shall have such good health or ill-health as shall be good for me! What more can I desire than that the Lord’s will should be done in my mortal body, whether by weakness or by strength? This, however, I will do—by God’s help I will preach as earnestly as I can when I do preach—and I will speak as plainly, as pointedly and as earnestly as possible when I am allowed to open my mouth in His name. Oh, that God might give me every soul in this place at this hour! And He will do it if we go to Him in humble prayer, pleading what He has said! The Lord is able to bless the word which we preach to an incalculable extent. There is no limit to the good which He can work by this one sermon! Oh, my dear Hearer, your hope does not lie in what you can say, but in what the Lord has said! Think little of the word of man, but think everything of the Word of God! Believe it for yourself and see if it is not fulfilled. Cling to the promise, come what may! The promise will hold you as surely as you hold the promise! God will be true to His promise and true to you, for Jesus Christ’s sake—be you true to Him. Amen.