WHERE TRUE PRAYER IS FOUND – Charles Spurgeon

Where True Prayer is Found

“Therefore has Your servant found in his heart to pray this prayer to You.” — 2 Samuel 7:27

David had first found it in his heart to build a house for God. Sitting in his house of cedar, he resolved that the ark of God should no longer abide under curtains, but should be more suitably housed. The Lord, however, did not design that David should build His temple, though He accepted his pious intentions and declared that it was well that it was in his heart. From which we may learn that our intentions to serve the Lord in a certain manner may be thoroughly good and acceptable, and yet we may not be permitted to carry them out. We may have the will but not the power, the aspiration but not the qualification.

We may have to stand aside and see another do the task which we had chosen for ourselves, and yet we may be none the less pleasing to the Lord, who in His great love accepts the will for the deed. It is a holy self-denial which in such cases rejoices to see the Lord glorified by others and at the Captain’s bidding cheerfully stands back in the rear when zeal had urged it to rush to the front. It is as true service not to do as to do when the Lord’s Word prescribes it.

David’s Purpose and God’s Plan

The reason why David was not to build the house is not stated here, but you will find it in 1 Chronicles 28:2, 3. “Then David the king stood up upon his feet, and said, Hear me, my brethren, and my people: for me, I had in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God, and had made ready for the building: but God said unto me, You shall not build a house for My name, because you have been a man of war, and have shed blood.”

David’s wars had been necessary and justifiable and by them, the people of the Lord had been delivered. But the Ever Merciful One did not delight in them and would not use for building His temple an instrument which had been stained with blood. The great Prince of Peace would not have a warrior’s hand to pile the palace of His worship, choosing rather that a man whose mind had exercised itself in quieter pursuits should be the founder of the place of rest for the ark of His covenant of peace.

A Lesson on War and Service

He is not so short of instruments, as to use a sword for a trowel, or a spear for a measuring rod, especially when these have been dyed in the blood of His creatures. In your own household affairs you do not use the same implement or utensil for opposite purposes. If David, therefore, is used to smite Philistines, he is not to be employed in erecting a temple. Solomon, his son, a man of peace, is called to do that holy work.

I have sometimes trembled on behalf of our own nation and especially just now, lest its warlike propensities should disqualify it for what has, up to now, appeared its highest destiny. If it should resolve to pick a quarrel and wantonly plunge itself into a bloody war, it may come to pass that our God may judge it to be unfit for the accomplishment of His purposes of grace. Even if it were granted that the war would be most just and right, yet should it be undertaken with solemn reluctance, lest it should deprive our nation of the capacity to be the preacher of righteousness and the herald of the cross.

The Call to Peace and Prayer

With what face can we preach the gospel of peace among the heathen if we ourselves provoke war? Little wonder would it be if the Lord should say of the English people, “You shall not convert the nations nor build up a church for My name, because you delight in war and have needlessly shed blood.” God grant that all things may be so ordered according to His infinite wisdom that this land may be the true Solomon among the nations and build a temple for God which shall enclose the whole earth, wherein every language and every nation shall be heard praising and magnifying the Lord. Labor, I pray you, O you servants of the loving Savior, to promote peace if the temporary rage of the multitude may be appeased without carnage.

When Circumstances Disqualify Us

To return to personal cases—it may happen to any one of you to be called to pass through business or domestic trials in which you may be altogether blameless, and yet you may, at the close of them, find yourself disqualified for certain prominent positions of usefulness, at least for a time. Therefore, you may not hope to accomplish certain high and noble purposes which once were laid upon your heart.

God may have to say to you afterward, “Your use lies elsewhere. I will not employ you for this, but still, I accept you and it was well that it was in your heart.” And if He should so see fit, do not fret, but like David, do all you can towards the work, that the man who is to perform it may find materials ready to his hand. David gathered much of the treasure to meet the cost and did it none the less earnestly, even though another name would outshine his own in connection with the temple.

The Consolation of Prayer

Beloved friends, there is a very sweet consolation in my text for those who may be placed in circumstances similar to those of David. If by any means a man of God becomes disqualified for any form of desirable service which was upon his heart, yet nothing can disqualify him from prayer. If he finds it in his heart to pray, he may boldly draw near to God through the sacrifice of Christ. He may still use the way of access which the dying body of our Lord has opened. And he may win his suit at the throne of grace.

It was well for David that when the building of the temple was in his heart it could not be, yet when a prayer was in his heart it might be presented with the certainty of acceptance. If you, my brother or my sister, are denied the privilege of doing what your heart is set upon, be not angry with God, but set your heart towards Him in prayer. Ask what you will, and He will give you the desire of your heart.

The Three Thoughts in the Text

By my text three thoughts are suggested. The first is, it is well to find prayer in our heart—“therefore has Your servant found in his heart to pray this prayer to You.” Secondly, it is pleasant to be able to see how the prayer came there—I shall trace the rise and progress of the prayer of David. And thirdly, it is most profitable to use a prayer when we find it in our heart, for David solemnly prayed the prayer which he discovered in his soul.

The Importance of Prayer in the Heart

I. First, then, IT IS WELL TO FIND PRAYER IN OUR HEARTS. In no other place can true prayer be found. Prayer with the lips, prayer with bended knee and uplifted hand is worth nothing if the heart is absent. Prayer as a mere matter of form and routine is but the husk, heart-work is the kernel. Words are the oyster shell; the desire of the heart is the pearl.

Do not imagine that the Lord looks down with any pleasure upon the tens of thousands of forms of prayer, whether liturgical or extempore, which are presented to Him without heart. Such forms rather weary Him than worship Him. They are not adoration, but provocation. The God of truth can never accept an untruthful devotion. Our prayers must flow from our heart or they will never reach the heart of God.

True Prayer Comes from the Heart

But prayer is not found in every man’s heart. Alas, many of our fellow men never pray. And many who think they pray are yet strangers to that sacred exercise. If an angel were now suddenly to announce that he would mark every man and woman here who has never prayed, I fear that many of you would be in a great fright, for fear the mark should be on you. If suddenly the complexion could change and each prayerless person’s face should gather blackness, I wonder how many there would be among us whom we should gaze upon with intense surprise!

There shall be no such Cain-like mark set upon any of you, but will you set some sort of seal upon your own conscience if you are compelled to confess, “I am one of those who have never prayed”? What an acknowledgment for a rational being to make! Twenty years of life without a prayer to the Creator of its being! Be astonished, O heavens, and amazed O earth!

A Prayerless Soul is a Lost Soul

Perhaps you deny that you are guilty, for you have always said a prayer and would not have gone to sleep at night if you had not done so. Then I pray you remember that you may have repeated holy words from your youth up and yet may have never prayed a prayer with your heart. To pray as the Holy Spirit teaches is a very different thing from the repetition of the choicest words that the best of writers may have composed, or the utterance of random words without thought. Have we prayed with our hearts or not?

Remember, a prayerless soul is a Christless soul, and a Christless soul is a lost soul and will soon be cast away forever. The verses were meant for children, but I cannot help quoting them here, for they, in simple language, express my meaning—

“I often say my prayers
But do I ever pray?
And do the wishes of my heart
Go with the words I say?
I may as well kneel down
And worship gods of stone,
As offer to the living God
A prayer of words alone.”

The Spirit of Prayer

Further, let me observe that the spirit of prayer, though it is always present in every regenerated heart, is not always alike active. It is not, perhaps, today nor tomorrow that every Christian will be able to say, “I find in my heart to pray this one particular prayer to God.” It may for the present be beyond our standard of grace and we may therefore be unable to grasp the blessing. In some respects, we are not masters of our supplications.

You cannot always pray the prayer of faith in reference to any one thing. That prayer is often the distinct gift of God for an occasion. Others may ask your prayers and sometimes, you may plead very prevalently for them, but at another time that power is absent. You feel no liberty to offer a certain petition, but on the contrary, feel held back in the matter. Well, be guided by this inward direction and follow, rather than press forward, in such a case.

The Power of Prayer

There are times with us when we find it in our heart to pray a prayer and then we do so with eagerness and assurance. But we cannot command such seasons at our pleasure. How freely then does prayer come from us, as the leaping water from the fountain? There is no need to say, “I long to pray,” we do pray, we cannot help praying, we have become a mass of prayer.

We are walking the streets and cannot pray aloud, but our heart pleads as fast as it beats. We enter our house and attend to family business and still the heart keeps pleading as constantly as the lungs are heaving. We go to bed and our last thought is supplication. If we wake in the night, our soul is still making intercession before God and so it continues while the visitation remains. O that it were always so!

True Prayer as a Necessity

Now it is a very happy thing when the Christian finds it in his heart to pray with marked and special fervor unto God. Then he puts no pressure upon himself, nor thinks of supplication as a matter of duty. It has become a pleasant necessity, a sacred passion of the inward life, a holy breathing of the soul not to be restrained. So it should always be, but alas, most of us have to mourn that in the matter of prayer we are the subjects of many changeful moods. O that we had learned more perfectly how to be praying always in the Holy Spirit.

The presence of living prayer in the heart indicates seven things about that heart upon which we will speak with great brevity.

Conclusion: The Heart of Prayer

First, prayer in the heart proves that the heart is renewed. True prayer dwells not in a dead, corrupt, stony heart. If you find in your heart to pray a prayer unto God, you have assuredly been born again. “Behold he prays,” is one of the first and one of the surest marks of the new birth. The faintest movement of the pulse proves that life still remains in a drowning man, and though prayer is weak, feeble, fragmentary, yet if it is there at all, the soul lives unto God.

How Prayer Comes to the Heart

How did it get there? First of all, the moisture was in the heavens, in the secret treasuries of God. Then came a day when it fell in drops of rain and did not return void, but watered the earth. Afterwards, when the blessed sun shone forth, it steamed up again, to return to the place from where it came.

The clouds are like the divine decree—who shall enter into the secret place where Jehovah hides His purposes? The rain is like the Word, with its sparkling drops of precious promises, the outcome of the mysterious purposes of God. These revealed blessings we see standing in pools in the Scriptures. Turn to the Book or listen to the Lord’s servants whom He helps to speak, and you shall hear a sound of abundance of rain.

The Power of Prayer

This rain waters the soul of man, and when the warm love of God comes shining on the saturated heart, it rises up in earnest petitions. Prayer is never lost, for though the mist which rises in yonder valley may never fall again into the same place, it drops somewhere. And so true prayer, though it comes not back into the offerer’s own bosom, is fruitful in good in some way or other.

The result of honest, hearty prayer may not be distinctly this or that according to your mind or mine, but it is always good. Supplication is never wasted; it is preserved in the divine reservoir, and in due time its influence visits the earth and waters it with “the river of God, which is full of water.”

The Journey of Prayer

When you find a rare flower by the roadside and wonder how it came there, for it is no indigenous weed but a fair stranger from another clime, it is pleasant to trace out its way to the place it beautifies. And even so, when you find a prayer in your heart, it is gladsome to see how it comes forth from the heart of God, by the Word of God, to blossom in the garden of your soul.

The Profit of Praying a Prayer

III. In the third place, IT IS VERY PROFITABLE TO USE A PRAYER WHEN WE FIND IT IN OUR HEART. Notice the phraseology of my text. He says, “Your servant has found in his heart to pray this prayer unto You.” Not to say this prayer, but to pray this prayer. There is great force in the expression. Some prayers are never prayed, but are like arrows which are never shot from the bow. Scarcely may I call them prayers, for they are such as to form, and matter and verbiage, but they are said, not prayed.

The Importance of True Prayer

The praying of prayer is the main matter. Sometimes, beloved, we may have a prayer in our hearts and may neglect the voice of the Lord within our soul, and if so, we are great losers. What does praying a prayer mean? It means, first, that you present it to God with fervency. Pray as if you meant it, throw your whole soul into the petition. Entreat the Lord with tears and cries.

If you do not prevail at first, yet come to Him persistently again and again with the resolve that since He has written the prayer in your heart, you will not take “no” for an answer. Heat your prayers red hot. In naval warfare, in the old days, our men of war fired red hot shot. Try that system, for nothing is as powerful in prayer as fervency and persistence.

Praying with Purpose and Boldness

Pray spiritually also, for the text says, “I have found it in my heart to pray this prayer to You.” It is of no use to pray to yourself or to the four walls of your room. Some persons even pray to those who are around them, like the preacher, of whose prayer the remark was made that “it was one of the finest prayers that ever was presented to a Boston audience.” I am afraid many prayers are presented to audiences rather than to God. This should not be.

Moreover, when you find a prayer in your heart, do not talk it over nor say to another, “I feel such-and-such a desire”—but go and pour it out before God. Speak it into the divine ear. Realize that God is there as distinctly as if you could see Him, for that is the way to make a proper use of the prayer which is in your heart.

Specific and Bold Prayer

Pray with specialty. The text indicates that—“I have found it in my heart to pray this prayer.” Know what you pray. Prayer is not putting your hand into a bag and pulling out what comes first. Oh, no, there must be definite desires and specific requests. Think carefully about it and ask for what you need and for nothing else but what you need.

Pray this prayer. David had a promise about his house and his prayer was about his house that God would bless and establish it. Much of what we think to be prayer is really playing at praying. The archers in the English armies of old, with their arrows a cloth-yard long, when they met the foe, took steady aim and they sorely galled the foe.

The Power of Focused Prayer

Give your little boy his bow and arrow and what does he do? He shoots at random and sends his arrows away, for he plays at archery. A good deal of praying is of that sort. There is no steadily taking aim at the white and drawing the bow with strength, and watching the arrow with anxiety. Lord, teach us to pray.

We ought to pray, too, dear friends, when we find prayer in our hearts, with much boldness. He says, “I found in my heart to pray,” that is, he had the heart to pray, the courage to pray. The promise influenced him to be bold with God. Some men fail in reverence for God, but far more fail in holy boldness towards God. Men who are mighty for God are generally famous for courage with Him.

Learning Boldness in Prayer

Look at Luther. They say it was wonderful to hear him preach, but a hundred times more so to hear him pray. There was an awful reverence about that heroic man, but there was also such a childlike simplicity of daring that he seemed as though he did really lay hold of God. That is the way. Try it in your chamber this afternoon. Be bold with God; find it in your heart to pray this prayer unto Him.

Praying Promptly and with Urgency

And do so promptly. Let promptness mark your prayer as it did that of David. He did not wait a week or two after he had obtained the promise. He went straight away and sat down before the Lord and began to plead the divine word and said, “Do as You have said.” He found the petition in his heart and before it could lose its way again, he brought it before God. He was studying his soul and as he observed its movements, he saw a prayer lift up its head.

Making Prayer a Priority

“Ah,” he said, “I will seize it.” And he held it fast and presented it before God, and so obtained a blessing. I suggest, dear friends, to those whose hearts feel touched in the matter, that we should today make special supplication to God as to the peace of nations, now so miserably endangered. You will meet as teachers in the school. You will meet in the classes.

Joining Together in Prayer for Peace

And others of you will be at home in meditation this afternoon. But you can all, in various ways, help in the common intercession. At this moment it is upon my heart very heavily to pray this prayer to God and I wish you would all make a point of joining in it—“Send us peace in our days, good Lord.” Not as politicians, but as followers of Christ, we are bound to entreat our Lord to prevent the cruel war which is now threatened. A curse will surely fall upon all who are causing the strife, but blessed are the peacemakers.

Praying for the Church and Its Mission

I believe that if all Christians would join in pleading with God, they would do much more than all the public meetings and all the petitions to the Houses of Parliament or to the Queen will ever accomplish. O Lord, prevent war, we pray You.

Another thing, during this week the various societies are holding their public meetings and I suggest, if you find it in your hearts, that you spend a little extra time in praying to God to bless His church and its mission work. There will, also, be meetings held of great importance this week, in connection with certain religious bodies. There are denominations which are sadly diseased with skepticism.

Praying for the Strength of the Church

But a healthy love for the truth remains with many, and therefore there will come a struggle between the evangelical and the philosophical parties. This week will witness such a struggle. Pray God to send the conquest to the right, to strengthen hesitating brethren and to give decision to those who have long been too timorous in their actions. Pray that power and guidance from on high may be given to those who hold the orthodox faith.

Praying for Our Church’s Work

I find it in my heart to pray so and shall be glad to know that others are agreeing with me. Find it in your hearts, too, at this time to pray for the work of this, our own church, and I call special attention to the work of our tract distributors. We have, now, nearly 90 brothers going from village to village, from house to house, distributing the Word of God and preaching it to those who in the hamlets might otherwise be left without the gospel.

Praying for the Success of Our Mission

Find it in your hearts to invoke a blessing upon them. And if there is anything that is more upon your heart than another, be wise enough to hedge in a quarter of an hour in order to pray the prayer unto the Lord. Shut yourself up and say, “I have business to do with the Master. I feel a call within my heart to speak with the King.”

A Call for Prayer and Blessing

Beloved brethren, when such a season comes upon you, I would most humbly but most affectionately ask those of you who are benefited by my ministry to whisper my name into the King’s ear, for I have much need of His grace and help. May the Lord accept your petitions, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Charles Spurgeon