Fivefold answer to Satan's discouragement to prayer from the greatness of the request 3/3

(3.) The safe return of our prayers. ‘Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you,’ John 16:23. Indeed, it is his business now in heaven to own our cause there in open court, and to present his blood as ready money to be laid down for all his saints beg, that no demur be made to their requests. So that, either thou must blot this article of Christ's intercession out of thy creed, or else put thyself to shame for questioning thy entertainment with God when thou hast so good a friend at court to speak for thee.
Answer 4. The greatness of thy request cannot hinder thy speeding, because thou art most welcome that ask most. Who are the persons frowned on at the throne of grace but those who lay out the strength of their desires, and bestow their greatest importunity for mercies of least weight and worth? ‘And they have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds,’ Hosea 7:14. Mark! the Lord did not account that they had prayed at all for all their loud cry; and why? but because he disdained their low and drossy spirit in crying loudest for that which they deserved least, as the following words will resolve us, ‘They assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against me,’ they would have a good crop with a full vintage; and these scraps should serve them, so as not to trouble God for any more. God, his love and favour, are quite left out of the story. May they but have their bellies crammed they have all their wish, and leave the other for those that like them better. O how God abhors these prostrate souls and carnal prayers! When men ‘tithe mint and cummin’ in their prayers, but neglect the weightier things of the promises, such are an interest in Christ, forgiveness of sin, a new heart, grace here and glory hereafter! Or, when they aim at low and base ends in praying for these things that in themselves are noble and high! And therefore fear not the greatness of thy request. God had rather give thee heaven than earth. He can more willingly bestow himself on thee that art in love with him, than a crust of bread on another that regards him not. The greater the mercy is thou askest, the greater the rent and revenue wilt thou pay him for it. The less he gives the less he receives. By low requests thou wrongest two at once. Thou art a thief to thyself, in wanting what thou mayest have for asking—in bringing a little vessel when thou mightest have a great one filled. Neither art thou so good a friend to thy God as thou shouldst; for the less grace thou hast from him, the less glory thou wilt return unto him. The reflex beams are proportionable to the lightsome body they come from. When grace is weak, the reflection it makes of praise and glory to God can be but weak and dark.
Answer 5. God is so free and redundant in communicating his mercy, that he exceeds his people’s modesty in asking. He gives them commonly their prayers with an overplus more than they have faith or face to ask; as Naaman, when Gehazi asked one talent, would need force two upon him. Abraham asked a child of God when he wanted an heir in whom he might live when dead. Now God promises him a son, and more than so, a numerous offspring; yea, more still, such an offspring, that in his offspring ‘all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.’ Jacob, he desired but God’s pass, under the protection of which he might go and return safely, with food and raiment enough to keep him alive, Gen. 28:20. Well, this he shall have. But God thinks it not enough; and therefore sends him home with two bands, who went out a poor fugitive with little besides his pilgrim’s staff. Solomon prays for wisdom, and God throws in wealth and honour, II Chr. 1:10. The woman of Canaan begs a crumb—as much as we would cast to a dog—and Christ gives her a child’s portion. She came to have her sick child made well, and with it she hath the life of her own soul given her. Yea, Christ puts the key of his treasure into her own hand, and leaves her as it were to serve her¬self: ‘Be it unto thee even as thou wilt,’ Matt. 15:28.

Fivefold answer to Satan's discouragement to prayer from the greatness of the request 2/3

Answer 2. Oppose the promise to thy fears. There is no mercy thou canst desire but is promised beforehand unto the prayer of faith. The mercy thou wouldst have is already voted in heaven, and the grant passed; only God stays for thy coming over to the throne of grace, there to lay thy claim to the promise before he issueth it forth. The mercy lies in the womb of the promise, but stays for thy prayer of faith to obstetricate, and give it a fair deliverance. ‘The children are come to the birth,’ said Hezekiah—the promise is big—wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is left, Isa. 37. That is, if anything will help, it must be that. What can a petitioner desire more in his address to a prince for some great favour, than to be assured not only a prince is of a gracious merciful nature, but also that he hath obliged himself to give that which he hath in his thoughts to desire? And shall only the promises of God be counted light and little worth? Have you not heard of such a promise: ‘Ask, that your joy may be full?’ Did ever a vain word drop from the lips of truth? Doth he make an order one day, and reverse it another? Are his words yea and nay? and not rather ‘yea and amen’ for ever? II Cor. 1:20. Beggars use to be quick-sighted. Benhadad’s servants saw light at a little hole; and gathered from a few kind words which dropped from Ahab’s mouth, that there was mercy raked up in his heart towards their master, which they soon blew up. Joab saw David’s bowels working towards Absalom through the casement of his countenance, and there-fore lets down the widow’s parable as a bucket to draw out that mercy which lay in his heart like water in a deep well. How much more encouragement hast thou, Christian, to plead with thy God, who art not put to guess at God’s thoughts, but hast the assurance of plain promises for thy good speed?

O what fools, and how slow of heart are we to believe the good word of God! If Moses supposed his brethren would have understood, by the kind visit he gave them, and his friendly office in rescuing one single Israelite from his oppressor’s hand, that God would by him deliver them all; how much more may God expect that his people should understand his purposes of love towards them, when he exposeth his heart to so open a view of their faith by his promise, and hath sealed the truth thereof with so many examples to whom already full payment hath been made of the same? And do we yet read them, as once the eunuch that sweet promise, Isa. 53, and understand not the meaning of them? Do we yet sit so near our comfort, as Hagar by the well, and our eyes held not to see it? Can we yet walk over the promises as barren ground, when, with a little digging into them, we might find a treasure to pay all our debts and supply all our wants?

Answer 3. Oppose to thy fears not only the greatness of the promises, but also the valuable consideration upon which they are made. Christ pays for what thou prayest. Thou, indeed, beggest alms, but Christ demands that same as debt. God is merciful to thee, but just to him. And therefore, Christian, though it becomes thee to sink thyself beneath the least mercy in thy own thoughts, yet it behooves thee to be tender of Christ’s credit, whose merit is far above the greatest mercy thou canst beg as thou art beneath the least. The Father will give you little thanks for casting any dishonourable reflection upon his Son, on whom himself hath heaped so much glory; yea, with whose honour his own is so inter¬woven, that whoever dishonours the Son dishonours the Father that sent him. Now there are three privileges purchased for every believer; and none of them can be lost by us without dishonour to him.

(1.) He hath purchased a liberty to pray. It had been death to come on such an errand to God till he had by his blood paved a way and procured a safe conduct, Heb. 10:17.

(2.) An ability to pray as he purchased the Spirit for us; called therefore ‘the Spirit of promise.’

Fivefold answer to Satan's discouragement to prayer from the greatness of the request 1/3

Answer 1. Oppose the greatness of that God thou art going to make thy address unto, against the greatness of thy request. We are bid to ‘ascribe greatness to our God,’ Deut. 32:3. And if ever, especially when kneeling down to pray. Wert thou to put up thy request to some puny prince, or petty creature, thou hadst reason to consider whether thy pitcher were not too great that thou wouldst have filled. Possibly thou mayest ask such a one more at one clap than he is worth. ‘Help, my lord, O king,’ said the woman in the famine of Samaria, yet she had no relief: ‘If the Lord do not help thee, whence shall I help thee?’ II Kings 6:26, 27. Or possibly, if he hath power, he may want a heart to part with so much as will serve thy turn. There are many of Nabal’s name in the world—such churls, who think every bit of bread lost that they eat not themselves; yea, some who grudge their own belly its necessary food. Wert thou at the door of such as those, what couldst thou expect but cold welcome? But remember he is a great God, great in power. Thou canst not overask. Thou mayest draw thine arrow to the head, and yet not overshoot the power of God. Even when thou hast drawn thy desires to the highest pitch, he shall be above thee; ‘for he is able to do exceedingly above what we can ask or think.’

Wouldst thou have thy sins pardoned? Yes, if they were not too great, thou sayest. But can God at once discount such a sum, and discharge so vast a debt, that hath been gathering many years by a full trade of constant sinning, with so great a stock of means and mercies as I have had; and thereby the unhappy advantage of making the greater return? Yes, he is able ‘abundantly to pardon,’ without any wrong to himself or control from any other. The sovereign power of life and death being in his hands, he is accountable to none;—as not for acts of justice, so neither of mercy. ‘It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? Rom. 8:33, 34. If, indeed, a man forgive a wrong done unto him, thou canst not think thyself therefore acquitted by God; his wrath may still chide on thee. Man cannot give away God’s right. Were a man so kind as to forgive a thief that robbed him, yet it is not in his power to discharge him of the penalty of the law. But if the prince, who is the lawgiver, will do it, none can gainsay. If God will pass an act of mercy, thou art free indeed; for the power lies in his hands.

Is it any masterly lust, from whose tyranny thou wouldst beg deliverance? The God thou prayest to is able to break open thy prison door, and make thee, a poor captive, go out free. He can give these thine enemies as dust to thy sword, and as driven stubble to thy bow; yea, destroy them with a cast of his eye: ‘The Lord looked unto the Egyptians...and troubled their host,’ Ex. 14:24. His very look was as heavy as a millstone about their necks. Presently they sank, horse and rider, like lead to the bottom of the sea. And sin and Satan are no more before God than were Pharaoh and his host.

In a word, is it comfort thou wouldst ask if it might be had? O, know he is a Creator thou prayest to! Though thy heart were as void of comfort as the chaos was of light, yet can he with a word cause a new heaven of joy to arise out of thy confused soul, and make in one moment to step out of darkness into light. Neither is his mercy less than his power. O, launch therefore into this bankless, bottomless sea, by thy faith! Behold the wonders of God in these depths, and do not stand reasoning thyself into unbelief by any uncomely comparisons between God and the narrow-hearted creature. ‘He is God and not man.’ None of these defects are to be found in his mercy which we impotent creatures find in ourselves. The paleness we see sometimes is not in the sun, but from the clouds that interpose. The stars do not blink nor twinkle, as is thought; but we—because of their vast distance, and our weak organ—cannot behold them with a fixed eye. Nor have the jealousies and fears entertained by tempted souls, to the disparagement of the mercy of God, any foundation in the divine nature, but are mere entia rationis—bugbears, which, through the darkness of their troubled spirits, and distemperature of a melancholy fancy, Satan hath the advantage of affrighting them with. O, beware therefore thou dost not disfigure the sweet lovely face of God’s mercy—which smile alike upon every poor, penitent, praying soul—while thou fanciest God to have a cast of this his eye, and to look more favourably upon one than another, lest by this you do betray the glorious name of God to be rent in pieces by your cruel unbelief! If you once come to wrap up God in your hard thoughts as slow to hear—hard to be wrought on with your prayers and tears; truly then Satan may easily persuade you to commit any sin against him, because you expect no mercy from him.