Jeremiah 33:3
Call upon me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.
FRANCIS ASBURY (1745-1816): Does God always hear prayer and answer it? If it is in the Spirit’s groaning, and in purity of intention, and in faith, doubtless He does.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Call upon me, and I will answer thee. Here Jehovah, the living God, distinctly promises to answer the prayer of His servant.
WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): He hath engaged to answer the prayers of His people and fulfil the desires of them that fear Him. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him: he will also hear their cry, and will save them, Psalm 145:18,19…What was the happy hour in which the angel knocked at Daniel’s door to let him know how God loved him? was it not when he was knocking at heaven’s door by his prayer? “At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to show thee, for thou art greatly beloved,” Daniel 9:23.
WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): The prayer of faith is always immediately heard, and if it be not always immediately answered, it is not from a want of disposition in God to bless us, but because He is a God of judgment, and waits to be gracious. But if we consult the Scripture, and appeal to our own experience, and especially observe not only the benefit we have derived from prayer, but in prayer, we shall know that He is a God at hand and not afar off, and will verify the truth of His own Word.
C. H. SPURGEON: It has come to be a matter of marvel in this evil age that a man can say that God grants him many mercies in answer to prayer…They tell us that prayer is a pious exercise which has no influence except upon the mind engaged in it. We know better. Our experience gives the lie a thousand times over to this infidel assertion.
WILLIAM JAY: Let us be His witnesses. Let us testify from our own experience. I have tried the freeness and fulness of His grace, I never trusted in Him and was confounded, never sought Him and was disappointed. Let us tell it to His own people.
C. H. SPURGEON: The Lord hath heard my supplications; the Lord will receive my prayer, Psalm 6:9. The experience here recorded is mine. I can set to my seal that God is true. In very wonderful ways He has answered the prayers of his servant many a time.
GEORGE MÜLLER (1805-1898): If I say that during the fifty-four years and nine months that I have been a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ I have had some thirty thousand answers to prayer, either in the same hour or the same day the requests were made, I should not go a particle too far. Often, before leaving my bedroom in the morning, have I had prayer answered that was offered that morning, and in the course of the day I have had five or six more answers to prayer; so that at least thirty thousand prayers have been answered the self-same hour or the self-same day that they were offered. But one or the other might suppose all my prayers have been thus promptly answered. No; not all of them. Sometimes I have had to wait weeks, months or years; sometimes many years.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): If an answer is not given to the first prayer, nor to the second, we must hold on, and hold out, till we receive an answer. As troubles are sent to teach us to pray, so they are continued to teach us to continue in prayer.
C. H. SPURGEON: We ought not to tolerate for a minute the ghastly and grievous thought that God will not answer prayer. His nature, as manifested in Jesus Christ, demands it. He has revealed Himself in the gospel as a God of love, full of grace and truth; and how can He refuse to help those of His creatures who humbly in His own appointed way seek His face and favour?―Will He give the invitation to us to seek His face, and when we, as He knows, with so much trepidation of fear, yet summon courage enough to fly into His bosom, will He then be unjust and ungracious enough to forget to hear our cry and to answer us? Let us not think so hardly of the God of heaven.
WILLIAM JAY: Did any ever seek Him in vain? Did Hezekiah? So far from it, and to show how quickly prayer reaches God and brings down the blessing, before Isaiah could get through the palace-yard the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Go and say to Hezekiah, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears,” II Kings 20:1-6. Thus He not only hears and answers prayer, but fulfils the word, Ere they call I will answer, and while they speak I will hear, Isaiah 65:24.
F. W. KRUMMACHER (1796-1868): He that “cannot lie” has promised it. Only ask in His name, as the children of God, by faith in Christ Jesus, trusting in God’s faithfulness to His promises, and you will certainly succeed at last. If six times the answer should be, “There is nothing;” yet wait on.
MATTHEW HENRY: It will without fail come at the fixed time and the fittest time. It will not tarry, for God is not slack, as some count slackness, 2 Peter 3:9; though it tarry past our time, yet it does not tarry past God’s time, which is always the best time.
WILLIAM JAY: If there be any meaning in the Scripture, we may rely upon answers to prayer.
F. W. KRUMMACHER: Through prayer, Moses turned away the fierce wrath of the Almighty from Israel; with outstretched arms he smote the host of Amalek; and Manoah, by the voice of his cry, drew down a visible manifestation of the Divine presence in human form. Through prayer at Mizpeh, the prophet Samuel smote the army of the Philistines, and caused the thunder of terror to roll over Israel’s. Through prayer, Josiah the prince died in peace. Through prayer fifteen years were added to Hezekiah’s life; the three men were preserved in the burning fiery furnace; and to Daniel it was said by Gabriel, “I am come because of thy words,” Daniel 10:12. At the prayer of the brethren on the day of Pentecost, the heavens were opened; and, another time, after they had prayed, the place where they were assembled was shaken, and all were filled with the Holy Ghost. Prayer burst the fetters of Peter, and broke open the doors of his prison. Prayer rebuked storms, healed the sick, and brought back the dead to life. And what shall I say more of the power, the wonders, and the performances of prayer—the whole Scripture is full of them.
C. H. SPURGEON: Beloved, to me, prayer is a matter of fact; for me to go and take a promise to God and ask Him to fulfil it, and to get it fulfilled, is as common and as usual and as much a matter of fact as it is for you who are in business to take cheques, and pass them across the counter at the bank and receive cash for them. Do you think that God is a fiction? If He is, then all our religion is a farce; but if God is real, then prayer is real, too.
JOHN SPURGEON* (1811-1902): God is a prayer-hearing God, and a prayer-answering God.
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*Editor’s Note: John Spurgeon was C. H. Spurgeon’s father; he outlived his son by ten years.
