Author Archives: reveds

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About reveds

Occupation: Pastor, Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, Lennox, SD Education: BS - Christian Education, Sterling College; MDiv. - Princeton Theological Seminary Family: Married, with Four children. Hobbies: Running (will someday run a marathon), Sci-Fi (especially Doctor Who and Sherlock), Theater, and anything else my kids will let me do.

Only A Prayer Meeting

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My heart is overjoyed!

This Sunday we are starting a month prayer meeting at the Church, a time to come together on Sunday evening to meet with our brothers and sisters in Christ and bring our supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving before our God who cares for us. This regular meeting has been a long-standing prayer and desire of mine for the Church, and I am confident that this is the beginning of a new day for our congregation.

Where the church as been easily divided and unity of being in one accord is threatened, where we have lost sight of our great commission, where we have been weak and ineffective – it is because we have neglected this essential means of grace. Spending time together, praying boldly, asking humbly, expressing faithfully our desire for God’s glory in and through His Church, though not a quick fix, will strengthen the Church and enable us to weather the coming storms.

As we embark on this ministry of prayer, I thought I’d share with you a brief portion of an address given by Charles Spurgeon at one of his prayer meetings. Spurgeon, the “Prince of Preachers,” helped to organize what became a weekly prayer meeting at his church, the Metropolitan Tabernacle (London), which had hundreds of members gathered each week in prayer. He famously called these prayer meetings the “Boiler Room” of the church, Spurgeon saw the prayers of his people seeking the grace and favor of God’s Holy Spirit as the spiritual power behind his preaching and ministry. Here is a portion of Spurgeon’s address: Only a Prayer Meeting!

What a company we have here tonight! It fills my heart with gladness, and my eyes with tears of joy, to see so many hundreds of persons gathered together at what is sometimes called ‘only a prayer meeting.’ It is good for us to draw nigh to God in prayer, and specially good to make up a great congregation for such a purpose. We have attended little prayer meetings of four or five, and we have been glad to be there, for we had the promise of our Lord’s presence; but our minds are grieved to see so little attention given to united prayer by many of our churches. We have longed to see great numbers of God’s people coming up to pray, and we now enjoy this sight. Let us praise God that it is so. How could we expect a blessing if we were too idle to ask for it? How could we look for a Pentecost if we never met with one accord, in one place, to wait upon the Lord? Brethren, we shall never see much change for the better in our churches in general till the prayer meeting occupies a higher place in the esteem of Christians. To mix it up with the weeknight lecture, and really make an end of it, is a sad sign of declension. I wonder some two or three earnest souls in such churches do not band themselves together to restore the meeting for prayer, and bind themselves with a pledge to keep it up whether the minister will come to it or not.

Spurgeon, Charles H. Only A Prayer Meeting (London, 2022; Christian Focus Publications) Page 9.

Brothers and Sisters, let us pledge to join with one another as the body of Christ for prayer. May we pray boldly, humbly seeking God’s grace and favor for His Church, interceding for the lost, making supplication for the needy, and in all things giving thanks to God through Christ Jesus our Lord!

SDG

The Goodness of God

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Sometimes you try to communicate a powerful truth, only to do it a severe injustice in your presentation. Then, mercifully, God leads you to find someone who has put into words the very thing you were trying to say, but with such eloquence and sufficiency, you feel foolish for ever trying.

Last Sunday, I was preaching on the Goodness of God, and goodness in our lives as a fruit of the Spirit. I tried explaining how the very essence of God is goodness, and that everything that comes from God, and every dealing with God, is rooted in His goodness. I feel I fell short. Then, shortly after preaching, I came upon Wilhelmus à Brakel’s writing on the Goodness of God. It’s too good not to share. Enjoy:

Goodness is the very opposite of harshness, cruelty, gruffness, severity, mercilessness—all of which are far removed from God. How unbecoming it is to have such thoughts about God! Such sinful emotions are found in man. The goodness of God, on the contrary, is the loveliness, benign character, sweetness, friendliness, kindness, and generosity of God. Goodness is the very essence of God’s Being, even if there were no creature to whom this could be manifested. “The good LORD pardon every one”  (2 Chr. 30:18); “Good and upright is the LORD: therefore will He teach sinners in the way”  (Ps. 25:8); “There is none good but one, that is, God”  (Mat. 19:17).

From this goodness issues forth lovingkindness and an inclination to bless His creatures. This is to the astonishment of all who take note of this, which explains why David exclaims twenty–six times in Ps. 136, “For His mercy 15 endureth for ever.” In the following texts we read likewise. “Also unto Thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy”  (Ps. 62:12); “All the paths of the LORD are mercy”  (Ps. 25:10). From goodness and benevolence issues forth the doing of that which is good. “Thou art good, and doest good”  (Ps. 119:68); “Rejoice the soul of Thy servant: and attend unto the voice of my supplications. For Thou Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon Thee”  (Ps. 86:4, 6, 5).

This goodness is of a general nature in reference to all God’s creatures, since they are His creatures. “The LORD is good to all: and His tender mercies are over all His works”  (Ps. 145:9); “The earth is full of the goodness of the LORD”  (Ps. 33:5); “For He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust”  (Mat. 5:45). The goodness which is of a special or particular nature as it relates to God’s children is thus expressed: “Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart”  (Ps. 73:1); “The LORD is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him”  (Lam. 3:25).

This goodness of God is the reason why a believer, even after many backslidings, is motivated by renewal to return unto the Lord. “The children of Israel shall return . . . and shall fear the LORD and His goodness”  (Hosea 3:5); “But I have trusted in Thy mercy”  (Ps. 13:5). This is why they call the Lord “the God of my mercy”  (Ps. 59:10, 17). In this goodness they rejoice and this goodness they magnify. “I will sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever”  (Ps. 89:1); “Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for He is good: for His mercy endureth for ever”  (Ps. 106:1).

 à Brakel, Wilhelmus. The Christian’s Reasonable Service and 2. Vol. 1. Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1993. Print.

SDG