Morning By Morning –
Charles H. Spurgeon
19 February 2013
“Thus saith the LORD God; I will yet
for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.” (Ezekiel
36:37)
Prayer is the forerunner of mercy.
Turn to sacred history, and you will find that scarcely ever did a great mercy
come to this world unheralded by supplication. You have found this true in your own personal experience; God has given
you many an unsolicited favour, but still great prayer has always been the
prelude of great mercy with you. When you first found peace through the blood
of the cross, you had been praying much, and earnestly interceding with God
that He would remove your doubts, and deliver you from your distresses. Your
assurance was the result of prayer. When at any time you have had high and
rapturous joys, you have been obliged to look upon them as answers to your
prayers. When you have had great deliverances out of sore troubles, and mighty
helps in great dangers, you have been able to say, “I sought the Lord, and He
heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.” Prayer is always the preface to
blessing. It goes before the blessing as the blessing’s shadow. When the
sunlight of God’s mercies rises upon our necessities, it casts the shadow of
payer far down upon the plain. Or, to use another illustration, when God piles
up a hill of mercies, He Himself shines behind them, and He casts on our
spirits the shadow of prayer, so that we may rest certain, if we were much in
prayer, our pleadings are the shadows of mercy. Prayer is thus connected
with the blessing to show us the value of it. If we had the blessings without
asking for them, we should think them common things; but prayer makes our
mercies more precious than diamonds. The things we ask for are precious, but we
do not realize their preciousness until we have sought for them earnestly.
“Prayer makes
the darken’d cloud withdraw;
Prayer climbs
the ladder Jacob saw;
Gives exercise
to faith and love;
Brings every
blessing from above.”
