The Golden Key of Prayer
Charles Haddon Spurgeon March 12, 1865 Scripture: Jeremiah 33:3 From: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 11 The Golden Key of Prayer
“Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” — Jeremiah 33:3.
He begins with the pit as a place of comforting spirituality and presents prayer as the way to stand up.
"He is good at all times; but he seems to be at his best when they are at their worst." ... "[Samuel] Rutherford had a quaint saying, that when he was cast into the cellars of affliction, he remembered that the great King always kept His wine there, and he began to seek at once for the wine-bottles, and to drink of the 'wines on the lees well refined.'"
The accompanying scripture is Jeremiah 33:3: Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.
1 - ("Call unto Me" - an order.) We would rather starve than partake of the gospel feast, if God didn't command that we pray. For every precept like "thou shalt not covet" that cannot be kept due to the flesh, a thousand sweet and pleasant precepts like "call unto Me" can be found in Scripture.
2 - (I will answer thee - a promise.) God's character guarantees He follows through when He says, "Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will answer thee." Hebrews 11:6 shows we don't need to question this quality "for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them, that diligently seek him" and again in James 1:7, "for he who wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed ; let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.” Spurgeon grew his church and reached a broader written audience through his publications through the blessings of prayer. There's no limit to prayer, but we should pray for His will instead of our own.
3 - (I will shew thee - encouragement) This point is directed at teachers. Prayer is the best means of study, especially prayer of united bodies of men, and it unlocks sacred mysteries. Daniel found out Nebuchadnezzar's dream through prayer with his companions, and the scroll with seven seals was opened after John's tears of prayer. Martin Luther said, "Bene orasse est bene studuisse" (to have prayed well is to have studied well). Cry after knowledge, pray for the Lord's help, study best you can, and you'll be given the knowledge of God and rich blessings. Ruth found a husband where she expected to find only a handful of barley.
(Spurgeon's Sermons on Prayer by Charles H. Spurgeon (2007), https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/the-golden-key-of-prayer/#flipbook/)