MISCARRIAGES in a praying saint which hinder his audience in heaven 1/5

HELLO GUYS, SORRY I WAS NOT AVAILABLE FOR THE PAST TWO WEEKS. MY SON PASSED AWAY FROM THE BRAIN CANCER. THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN PRAYING FOR HIM. HE BECAME  A CHRISTIAN A FEW MONTHS AGO. THANKS VERY MUCH.  - I AM BACK NOW AND THANKS FOR UNDERSTANDING

1. Miscarriage. When the thing prayed for is not according to the will of God.  We have not a liberty to pray at random for what we will.  The throne of grace is not set up that we may come and there vent our sudden distempered passions before God, or make any saucy motion to him that comes in our head. Truly then God would have work enough.  If we had promised to sign all our petitions without any regard to the subject matter of them, he should too oft set his hand against himself, and pass that away which would be little for his glory to give.  Herod was too lavish when he gave his minion leave to ask what she would, even to half of his kingdom.  And he paid dearly for it; he gave her that head which was more worth than his whole kingdom—for the cutting off his head lost him his crown.  No, we have to do with a wise God, who, to stop the mouth of all such bold beggars, that would ask what unbeseems us to desire, or him to give, hath given a law of prayer, and stinted us to the matter thereof: ‘When ye pray, say, Our Father,’ &c.  That is, learn here what you may pray for in faith to receive.  ‘And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us,’ I John 5:14.

         Faith, without a promise, is like a foot without any firm ground to stand upon.  It was well Luther interpreted himself, when he said, fiat voluntas mea —my will be done—mea, Domine, quia tua—my will, Lord, because thine.  Now, the promise contains this will of God.  Be sure thou gatherest all thy flowers of prayer out of this garden, and thou canst not do amiss.  But take heed of mingling with them any wild gourd of thine own.  Remember the check our Lord gave his disciples when venting their vindictive passion in their prayer: ‘Wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them?...And he said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of,’ Luke 9:54, 55.  They had here an ex¬ample to countenance their act.  But that heroicus impetus, and extraordinary spirit by which Elijah and other of the prophets were acted, is not our standing rule for prayer.  That came in them from the Spirit of God, which in us may proceed from the spirit of the devil, which is implied in our Saviour's question, ‘Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.’  As if he had said, ‘You little think who stirred you up.  You had your coal, not from God’s altar, but from Satan’s furnace.’

         O! let us beware that we be not the devil’s mes¬sengers in going to God upon his errand; which we do when we pray against the rule or without a warrant. Belch not out thy unruly passions of anger there, presently to have thine enemies confounded—the disciples’ case; nor vent thy intemperate sorrow through impatience—as Job in the paroxysm of his trouble begs of God to take away his life in all haste. Take counsel of the word, and ‘let not thy lip be hasty to utter a matter before the Lord.’  Daniel’s method was the right, Dan. 9:2.  First, he goes to the Scripture and searches what the mind of God was concerning the time when he had promised his people a return out of their captivity, which having found, and learned thereby how to lay his plea, then away he goes to besiege the throne of grace.  ‘And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer,’ &c., ver. 3.  Art thou sick or poor?—in want of any temporal mercy? Go and inquire upon what terms these are promised, that thy faith may not jet beyond the foundation of the promise by a peremptory and absolute desire of them, for then thy building will fall, and thou be put to shame, because thou askest more than God ever promised.