3280. Christ’s Prayer and Plea

A Sermon Published On Thursday, December 14, 1911.

Preserve me, oh God: for I put my trust in you. {Ps 16:1}

1. I believe that we have in this verse a prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some portions of this Psalm cannot apply to anyone but the Saviour; and we have the examples of Peter and Paul to warrant us in saying that, in this Psalm, David spoke of Jesus Christ. There is no apparent division in the Psalm, so that, as one part of it refers most distinctly to Christ, we are justified in concluding that all of it refers to him, and belongs to him! But we know that whatever belongs to Christ belongs also to all his people because of their vital union with him, so we shall treat the text, first, as our Saviour’s own prayer; and then, secondly, we shall regard it also as the prayer of the followers of the Lamb.

2. I. So, first, we will take these words as OUR SAVIOUR’S OWN PRAYER: “Preserve me, oh God: for I put my trust in you”; and we will divide the text, at once into two parts, — the prayer itself: “Preserve me, oh God”: and the argument or plea: “for I put my trust in you.”

3. In considering these words as Christ’s prayer, does it not immediately strike you as a very exceptional thing that Christ should pray at all? It is most certain that he was “very God of very God,” that “Word” who was in the beginning with God, and who was himself God, the great Creator “without whom was not anything made that was made.” But, without in any degree taking away his glory and dignity as God, we must never forget that he was just as truly man, one of the great family of mankind, and “as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same.” Though he remained sinless, he “was in all points tempted like we are.” Being, therefore, man, and intending to make himself not only the atoning sacrifice for his people, but also a perfect example that they might imitate, it became necessary that he should pray. What would a Christian be without prayer, and how could a Christ who never prayed be an example to a Christian? Yet notwithstanding the fact that it was necessary, it was marvellously condescending on our Saviour’s part. The Son of God, with strong crying and tears making known his requests to his Father, is one of the greatest marvels in all the ages. What an amazing stoop it was that Jesus, the sinless Son of God, the thrice-holy One, the Anointed, the Christ, for whom prayer is to be made continually, should himself have prayed to his Father!

4. Yet, while there is much condescension in this fact, there is also much comfort in it. When I kneel in prayer, it is a great consolation to me to know that, where I bow before the Lord, there is the print of my Saviour’s knees. When my cry goes up to heaven, it goes along the road which Christ’s cry once travelled. He cleared away all impediments so that now my prayer may follow in the track of his. Be comforted, Christian, if you have to pray in dark and stormy nights, with the thought that your Master did the same.

   Cold mountains and the midnight air

      Witness’d the fervour of his prayer;

   The desert his temptation knew,

      His conflict and his victory too.

If you have to pray in severe agony of spirit fearing that God has forsaken you, remember that Christ has gone further even than that into the depths of anguish in prayer, for he cried in Gethsemane, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

5. In addition to being condescending and comforting, this fact of our Saviour praying shows the intimate communion there is between Christ and all the members of his mystical body. It is not only we who have to pray, but he who is our Head bowed in august majesty before the throne of grace. Throughout the narratives of the four evangelists, one is struck with the many times that mention is made of Christ’s prayers. At his baptism, it was while he was praying that “the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form like a dove on him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, ‘You are my beloved Son; in you I am well pleased.’” On another occasion, we read that, “as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.’” On the mount of transfiguration, “as he prayed, the form of his countenance was altered, and his clothing was white and glistening.” Jesus was emphatically “a man of prayer.” After a long day of teaching the people and healing the sick, instead of seeking repose, he would spend the whole night in prayer to God; or, at another time, rising up a great while before day, he would depart into a solitary place, and there pray for the needed strength for the new day’s duties.

6. So having noticed the fact of Christ’s praying, I want now to call your attention to the particular prayer in our text, and I ask you first to observe that it is addressed to God in a special aspect. You do not see this in our translation, but in the Hebrew it is, “Preserve me, oh El.” That is one of the names of God, and the same name that the Saviour used when he cried, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Many Christians seem to have only one name for God, but the Hebrew saints had many titles for the one living and true God. Worldlings generally talk about “The Almighty” as though his only characteristic was the omnipotent might which is displayed in great storms on the sea or terrible calamities on the land. But our Saviour, whose knowledge of God was perfect, selects a name here of God especially suitable to the condition in which he was at the time when he offered this prayer; for, according to most commentators, the word “El” means “The strong One.” So it is weakness crying to the Strong for strength: “Preserve me, oh you who are so strong, so mighty, that you uphold all things by the word of your power!” Others say that “El” means “The Ever-Present One.” This is a delightful name for God, and one that is most appropriate for a believer to use when he is in peril on land or sea, in the den of lions or in the burning fiery furnace: “Oh you Ever-Present One, preserve me!” Jehovah is indeed “a very present help in trouble.” I wish we could acquire a more intimate knowledge of the divine character so that, in calling on him in prayer, we could seek the aid of that special attribute which we need to have exercised on our behalf. What a blessed title is that of Shaddai which Bunyan uses in his Holy War, — El Shaddai, God all-sufficient or, as some render it, “The many-breasted God,” the God with a great abundance of heart, full of mercy and grace, and supplying the needs of all his children out of his own fulness! Then take the other names or titles of God, Jehovah-Nissi, Jehovah-Shammah, Jehovah-Shalom, Jehovah-Tsidkenu, and any others that you can find, and think how much better we could pray if, instead of always saying, “Oh Lord!” or “Oh God!” we appealed to him under some title which indicated the attribute which we desired to be exerted on our behalf.

7. Next notice that this is a prayer produced by an evident sense of weakness. The supplicant feels that he cannot preserve himself. We believe that the human nature of Christ was altogether free from any tendency to sin, and that it never did sin in any sense whatever; yet, still, the Saviour here appears not to rely on the natural purity of his nature but he turns away from what might seem to us to be a good subject for reliance in order to show that he would have nothing to do with self-righteousness, just as he wishes to have nothing to do with it. The perfect Saviour prays, “Preserve me, oh God”; so, beloved, let us also pray this prayer for ourselves. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was without any tendency to sin, put himself under the shadow of the almighty wings; then shall I wickedly and presumptuously dare to go into danger trusting in my own integrity, and relying on my own strength of will? God forbid that you or I should ever act like this. Jesus was only weak because he had assumed our nature, yet in his weakness there was no tendency to sin; but our weakness is linked with a continual liability to evil; so, if Jesus prayed, “Preserve me, oh God,” with what earnestness should each one of us cry to the Lord, “Hold me up, and I shall be safe.”

8. I remark, next, that this prayer in the lips of Christ appeals for a promised blessing. “What!” says someone, “is there anywhere in God’s Word a promise that Christ shall be preserved?” Oh, yes! Turn to the prophecy of Isaiah, the forty-ninth chapter, and read there, “Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, to him whom man despises, to him whom the nation abhors, to a servant of rulers, ‘Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the Lord who is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and he shall choose you.’ Thus says the Lord, ‘In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you: and I will preserve you, and give you for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages.’” {Isa 49:7,8} When the Saviour prayed this prayer, he could remind his Father of the promise given through Isaiah, and say to him, “You have said, ‘I will preserve you’ do as you have said, oh my Father!”

9. Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, let us learn, from our Saviour’s example, to plead the promises of God when we go to him in prayer. Praying without a promise is like going to war without a weapon. God is so gracious that he may yield to our entreaties even when he has not given a definite promise concerning what we are asking from him; but going to him with one of his own promises is like going to a bank with a cheque, he must honour his own promise. We speak reverently, yet very confidently on this point. To be consistent with his own character, he must fulfil his own word which he has spoken; so, when you approach the throne of grace, search out the promise that applies to your case, and plead it with your heavenly Father, and then expect that he will do as he has said.

10. Observe, next, that this prayer of Christ obtained an abundant answer. You remember the many preservations which he experienced, — how he was preserved, while yet a child, from the envy and malice of Herod, and how again and again he was delivered from those who sought his life. He was also preserved many times from falling into the snares set for him by scribes and Pharisees and others who tried to entrap him in his talk. How wisely he answered the lawyer who came to him tempting him, and those who sought to catch him over the matter of paying tribute to Caesar! He was never taken as a bird ensnared by the fowler; he was always preserved in every emergency. He was like a physician in a hospital full of lepers, yet he was always preserved from the contagion.

11. Then, to close this part of the subject, notice that this prayer most deeply concerns the whole company of believers in Christ, for it strikes me that, when our Saviour prayed to his Father, “Preserve me,” he was thinking of his whole mystical body, and pleading for all who were vitally united to him. You remember how, in his great intercessory supplication, he pleaded for his disciples, “Holy Father, keep through your own name those whom you have given me, that they may be one, as we are.” This is the same prayer as “Preserve me” if we understand the “me” to include all who are one with Christ. We also are included in that supplication, for he further said, “Neither do I pray for these alone, but for those also who shall believe in me through their word; that they all may be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that you have sent me.” Yes, dear friend, though you may seem to yourself to be the lowliest of the Lord’s people, even though you are in your own apprehension only as his feet that glow in the furnace of affliction, even you are among those whom Christ entreated his Father to keep, and you may rest assured that he will certainly do so. Christ will never lose one of the members of his mystical body; if he could do so, his body would be imperfect and incomplete, but that it never can be. Paul tells us that Christ’s Church “is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all”; so that, if he were left without his fulness, he would have suffered an irreparable loss. That can never be the case, so this prayer will be answered concerning the whole body of believers in Jesus, who shall be presented “faultless before the presence of his glory with very great joy,” blessed be his holy name!

12. Let us now turn to the plea which Christ urged in support of his prayer: “Preserve me, oh God: for I put my trust in you.” Did Christ put his trust in his Father? We scarcely need to ask the question, and we know at once what the answer must be. In the matter of faith, as in everything else, he is a perfect example to his people, and we cannot imagine a Christian without faith. Faith is the very life of a true believer in Jesus; indeed, without faith he is not a believer, so Christ was his model in this respect as well as in every other.

13. The words “I put my trust in you” may be translated “I take shelter in you” There is in them an allusion to running under something for shelter; in fact, the best example I can use to give you the meaning of this sentence is that of the little chicks running under the wings of the hen for shelter. We hide ourselves just like that under the overshadowing wings of the Eternal. As a man, Christ used this plea with God, that he was sheltering from all evil under the divine wings of power, and wisdom, and goodness, and truth. This is an accurate interpretation of the passage, and there are many examples recorded in Scripture in which Christ really did this. Take, for example, that remarkable declaration in Psalm 22: “You made me trust while on my mother’s breasts,” {Ps 22:9} as though very early in life, probably far earlier than any of us were brought to know the Lord, Jesus Christ was exercising hope in the Most High. Then again, in the fiftieth chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah, we have these words, which must refer to the Lord Jesus Christ, “I gave my back to the strikers, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the hair: I did not hide my face from shame and spitting.” That verse is immediately followed by this one, “For the Lord God will help me: therefore I shall not be confounded: therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.” These words were particularly appropriate from the lips of Christ, yet each one of his followers may also say, “The Lord God will help me.”

14. Even in his last agonies Christ uttered words which plainly prove that he had put his trust in God, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” There is more faith in that final commendation of his soul to his Father than some of you might imagine, for it takes great faith to be able to speak like this in the circumstances in which Christ was then placed. Not only was he suffering the terrible pangs that were inseparable from death by crucifixion, but he had to bear the even greater grief that was his portion when his Father’s face was withdrawn from him because he was in the place of sinners, and therefore had to endure the separation from God which was their due. Job said, “Though he kills me, yet I will trust in him”; and this was what Jesus actually did. What amazing faith it was that trusted in God even when he said, “‘Awake, oh sword, against my shepherd, and against the man who is my companion,’ says the Lord of hosts!” Yet even then Jesus turned to his Father, and said, “‘Father into your hands I commend my spirit’; I commit myself into the hand that wields the sword of infallible justice, into the hand that has crushed me, and broken me into pieces.” Talk about faith, did you ever hear of such sublime confidence as that having been displayed by anyone else? When a martyr had to lay down his life for the truth, his faith is sustained by the comforting presence of God; he believes in the God who is smiling on him even while he is in the midst of the fire. But Christ on the cross trusted in the God who had forsaken him. Oh beloved, imitate this faith as far as it is possible in your case! What a glorious height of confidence Jesus reached; oh, that we may have grace to follow where he has so blessedly led the way!

15. I want you to carefully notice the argument that is contained in Christ’s plea: “Preserve me, oh God: for I put my trust in you.” Christ, as God, had felt the power of that plea, so he knew that his Father would also feel its power. You remember that Jesus said to the woman of Canaan, “Oh woman, great is your faith: be it to you even as you wish.” Her faith prevailed with him, and he felt that his faith would prevail with his Father; so that, when he said, “I put my trust in you,” he knew that he would obtain the preservation for which he pleaded. Jesus never forgot that the rule of the kingdom is, “According to your faith be it done to you.” He knew that we must “ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he who wavers is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. Do not let that man think that he shall receive anything from the Lord.” So Jesus came to his Father with this plea, “I trust in you, I have absolute confidence in you, therefore, please preserve me.” My dear brother or sister in Christ, can you say the same? Can you look up to God, and say, “I put my trust in you”? If so, you may use it as Christ used it in pleading with his Father. Perhaps you have gazed on a weapon that has been wielded by some great warrior. If you had that weapon in your hand, and were going out to fight, you would feel, “I must not be a coward while I am grasping a brave man’s sword, but I must play the man with it as he did.” Well, you have in your grasp the very weapon which Christ used when he gained the victory. You can go before God with the very same argument that Christ used with his Father, and he will hear your plea even as he heard Christ’s; “Preserve me, oh God: for I put my trust in you.”

16. II. I had intended, in the second place, to speak of my text as THE PRAYER OF CHRIST’S FOLLOWERS; but, instead of preaching on it as I would have done had time permitted, I will merely give you a few notes on it, and then you can preach the second sermon yourselves by practising it as you go your various ways to your homes.

17. First, what does this prayer mean to a believer? It means that you put yourself and all belonging to you under divine protection. Before you close your eyes, pray this prayer: “‘Preserve me, oh God!’ Preserve my body, my family, my house, from fire, from famine, from hurt or harm of every kind.” Especially present the prayer in a spiritual sense: “Preserve me from the world; do not let me be carried away with its excitements; do not permit me to bow before its blandishments, nor to fear its frowns. Preserve me from the devil; do not let him tempt me more than what I am able to bear. Preserve me from myself; keep me from growing envious, selfish, high-minded, proud, slothful. Preserve me from those evils into which I see others run, and preserve me, from those evils into which I am myself most apt to run; keep me from evils known and from evils unknown. ‘Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; do not let them have dominion over me.’”

18. This is a prayer which is more comprehensive in the original than it is in our version. It may be translated, “Save me,” and this is a prayer that is suitable for many here. Those of you who have never prayed before can begin with this prayer, “Save me, oh strong One! It will indeed need a strong One to save me, for I am so far gone that nothing but omnipotence can save me.” It may also be rendered, “Keep me,” or “Guard me.” It is the word which we should use in speaking of the body-guard of a king or of shepherds protecting their flocks. It is a prayer which you may keep on using from the time you begin to know the Lord until you get to heaven, and then you will only need to alter Jude’s Doxology very slightly, and to say, “To him who has kept us from falling, and presented us faultless before the presence of his glory with very great joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and for ever. Amen.”

19. Next, when is this prayer suitable? Well, it is suitable at this moment; you do not know what dangers you will encounter before you go to your bed tonight. Take special care when you come to what you consider the safe parts of the road, for you will probably be most in danger when you think you are in no danger at all. It is often a greater peril not to be tempted than to be tempted. This prayer is suitable to some of you who are starting new jobs, where you will have new responsibilities, new duties, and probably new trials and difficulties. In the old days of superstition, people were foolish enough to wear charms of various kinds to guard them from evil; but such a prayer as this is better than all their charms. If your pathway should lie through the enchanted fields or even through the valley of the shadow of death, you need not be afraid, but may march boldly on with this prayer on your lips, “Preserve me, oh God: for I put my trust in you.”

20. Then, in what spirit ought this prayer to be offered? It should be offered in a spirit of deep humility. Do not pray, “Preserve me, oh God,” as though you felt that you were a very precious person; it is true that God regards you as one of his jewels if you are a believer in Jesus, but you are not to regard yourself as a jewel. Think of yourself as a brand plucked from the burning, and then you will pray with due humility. Pray as a poor feeble creature who must be destroyed unless God shall preserve you. Pray as if you were a sheep that had been shorn, and that needed to have the wind tempered to it. Pray as a drowning man might pray, “Preserve me, oh God.” Pray as sinking Peter prayed, “Lord, save me,” for you shall be preserved even as he was.

21. With what motive ought you to pray this prayer? Pray it especially out of hatred for sin. Whenever you think of sin, the best thing you can do is to pray, “Preserve me, oh God.” Whenever you hear or read of others doing wrong, do not begin to plume yourself on your own excellence, but cry at once, “Preserve me, oh God, or it may be that I shall sin even as those others have done.” If tonight you are a Christian, the praise for this is not to be given to yourself, but to the Lord who has made you to differ from others. You are only what his grace has made you, so show how highly you value that grace by asking for more and more of it.

22. This must suffice concerning the prayer of the text, for I must, in closing, remind you of the plea, and ask if each one here is able to use it: “Preserve me, oh God: for I put my trust in you.” Can you, my friend, urge this plea with God tonight? Perhaps you say that you could do so years ago, then why not put your trust in the Lord now? It is present faith that you need in your present perils, and you cannot pray acceptably without faith, “for he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.” You know what it is to trust a friend, and perhaps to be deceived, but do you know what it is to trust in God, and not be deceived? Are you trusting for salvation only in Christ? Do you sing, — 

   Thou, oh Christ, art all I want,

      More than all in thee I find?

Is this your plea continually; are you always trusting in God, in the dark as well as in the light? Many a man thinks he is strong until he begins to exert his strength, and then he finds that it is utter weakness. There are many who imagine they are full of faith until they try to exercise it, and then they realize how little they have. They are fine soldiers when there is no fighting, and splendid sailors as long as they are on dry land; but such faith as that is of little use when some great emergency arises. The faith we need is that firm confidence which sings, — 

   His love in time past forbids me to think

   He’ll leave me at last in trouble to sink;

   Each sweet Ebenezer I have in review

   Confirms his good pleasure to help me quite through.

If that is the kind of faith you have, you need not fear to pray, “Preserve me, oh God,” for he will be as a wall of fire all around you to guard you from all evil; and though you are now in the midst of those who would drag you down to their level if they could, or turn you aside from the paths of righteousness, the Lord, in whom you have put your trust, will never leave you, nor forsake you, but will bring you in his own good time to that blessed place of which he has told you in his Word, and there, — 

   Far from a world of grief and sin,

      With God eternally shut in, — 

you shall be preserved from all evil for ever, and faith shall be blessedly exchanged for sight. May God grant that every one of us may be able to pray the prayer of our text, and to use the plea, “Preserve me, oh God: for I have put my trust in you,” for Jesus’ sake! Amen.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Joh 17}

Can there be found, in all the records of mankind, in all the documents that have ever been preserved, anything that can match this record of our Saviour’s great intercessory prayer? He seems to pray here as if he stood already within the veil; not pleading in agony as he did in the garden of Gethsemane, but speaking with that authority with which he is clothed now that his work on earth is done. There is as much of the divine as of the human in this prayer, and it is remarkable that in it our Lord does not make any confession of sin on account of his people. He does not come before God here, as it were in forma pauperis, {poor form} with many pleas, but the burden of his prayer is that he may be glorified, and that his Father may be glorified in him. The words of the prayer are among the most simple that could have been selected, but oh, the depths that lie hidden beneath them! I do not think that, this side of heaven, any of us can know to the full the meaning of this wonderful chapter. May the Holy Spirit graciously grant us a glimpse of the glorious truths that are revealed here!

1. Jesus spoke these words and lifted up his eyes to heaven, — 

Not his hands, as we do who are poor supplicants; but his eyes, indicating where his thoughts went. He “lifted up his eyes to heaven,” — 

1. And said, “Father, the hour is come; glorify your Son, so that your Son also may glorify you.

No mere man would have dared to pray such a prayer as this. Jesus asks that he may be gloried by his Father so that he also may glorify his Father; he put the two things together: “Father, glorify your Son, so that your Son may also glorify you.” This is not a plea that is fit for merely human lips. It is Jesus the Son of God who, in receiving glory from his Father, is also able to return it to his Father.

2, 3. Since you have given him power over all flesh, so that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2396, “Eternal Life!” 2397}

See how he puts himself side by side with God as no mere man might dare to do. Only he who was equal with the Father could venture to plead like this, claiming power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as the Father had given him. Here we learn that it is eternal life to know God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent.

4. I have glorified you on the earth: I have finished the work which you gave me to do.

“My teaching is all done, my ministry is finished; and though there are still some arrears of suffering, yet those shall be fully discharged in due time. ‘I have finished the work which you gave me to do.’”

5. And now, oh Father, glorify me with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was.

You must try and think of who it is that is pleading like this, for by so doing you will get at least some faint idea of the intercession of our great High Priest in heaven, for he still prays in this way to his Father before the eternal throne.

6. I have revealed your name to the men whom you gave me out of the world: they were yours, and you gave them to me; and they have kept your word.

“They were yours, my Father, under your direct government; but you have transferred them to my mediatorial sovereignty, and you have turned them over to be mine, in a very special sense, beyond all the rest of mankind; and this is one of their distinguishing characteristics, that ‘they have kept your word.’”

7, 8. Now they have known that all things whatever you have given me are from you. For I have given to them the words which you gave me; and they have received them, — 

Is it so with you, dear friend? Have you received Christ’s words, the very words which the Father gave to him, and which he has in his turn given to you? Oh soul, you are indeed happy if this is the case with you! “I have given to them the words which you gave me; and they have received them,” — 

8, 9. And have known surely that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I pray for them: I do not pray for the world, —  {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2331, “Christ’s Pastoral Prayer for his People” 2332}

That is, not in the same special sense as he prays for his people, not with that personal pleading which he offers on behalf of his own chosen ones: “I do not pray for the world,”

9. But for those whom you have given to me; for they are yours.

In the sixth verse, Jesus had said to his Father, “They were yours”; and here, in this ninth verse, he says, “They are yours.” They still belonged to the Father, the transference of them mediatorially to the Son having made no change in the Father’s relationship to them.

10. And all mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I am glorified in them.

I can understand a man saying to God, “All mine are yours”; but no man, unless he is something more than man, dares to say to God, “Yours are mine.” But Jesus Christ, who is both God and man, gives all that he has to God, and all that God has belongs to him, so that he can truly say, “All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I am glorified in them.”

11. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to you. Holy Father, keep through your own name those whom you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are.

It has been well said that this expression, “Holy Father,” is a binding up of the Old and New Testaments in one. The Old Testament reveals the holiness of God, but it is the New Testament that is particularly the revelation of God as the Father. We put the two together, as Jesus does; and so he speaks, “Holy Father, make my people one, and keep them one.” Let us close up our ranks, brethren. Let us love each other more; and since Christ has prayed that we may be one, let us constantly seek to reveal our oneness among the sons of men.

12-17. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name: those whom you gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; so that the Scripture might be fulfilled. And now I come to you; and I speak these things in the world, so that they might have my joy fulfilled in them. I have given them your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not from the world. I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through your truth: {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1890, “Our Lord’s Prayer for his People’s Sanctification” 1891}

How wonderfully our Saviour’s prayer advances! He asks for his people’s unity; he asks for their joy; he asks for their preservation; and now he asks for their purification, their sanctification: “Sanctify them through your truth”:

17-20. Your word is truth. Just as you have sent me into the world, even so I have also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither do I pray for these alone,

“For these who are already converted, I pray also for those who are not yet called by grace.”

20-22. But for those also who shall believe in me through their word; that they all may be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that you have sent me. And the glory which you gave me I have given them: — 

Who among us knows the full meaning of that wonderful declaration? “The glory which you gave me I have given them”: — 

22, 23. That they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that you have sent me, and have loved them, and you have loved me. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1472, “The Glory, Unity, and Triumph of the Church” 1472}

What a glorious assurance is that! It amazes us to know that the Father has loved us even as he loved his Son.

24-26. Father, I will that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am; so that they may behold my glory, which you have given me: for you loved me before the foundation of the world. Oh righteous Father, the world has not known you: but I have known you, and these have known that you have sent me. And I have declared to them your name, and will declare it: that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1378, “The Righteous Father Known and Loved” 1369} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1667, “‘Love and I’ — A Mystery” 1668}

Just Published. Price one Penny Each

Spurgeon’s Illustrated Almanac for 1912

The Texts for the Book Almanac have again been selected by Pastor Thomas Spurgeon, and they have reference, more or less directly, to the series of spiritual graces mentioned in Galatians 5:22,23; he has also again written the introductory letter, and one of the short illustrated articles is from his pen. No less than five of the others are by C. H. Spurgeon; Dr. Churcher has written on Sfax, the “stormless port” to which many refugees from Tripoli have gone; Pastor John Clark, M. A., has contributed a page of poetry, and Mr. Harrald has drawn spiritual lessons from the launch of the Shoreham lifeboat. Since the illustrations are especially good ones, it is hoped that the sale will be even larger than in past years.

John Ploughman’s Almanac for 1912

This popular broadsheet once more makes its appearance in good time for friends in distant lands to have it before the new year comes, and for friends at home to arrange for its widespread circulation wherever its homely messages may help to increase the practice of temperance, thrift, religion and charity. It is believed that both pictures and proverbs will give the Almanac a worthy place among the many that have preceded it. The price for quantities for general distribution or localization can be obtained from Messrs. Marshall Brothers, Limited, 47, Paternoster Row, London, E. C.