Prayer Meeting  24/01/2023
A Responsive Heart  - Part 3
Psalm 27:8


Well this will be our third and final talk on the sermons of Richard Sibbes called ‘The Successful Seeker’. We have entitled it ‘A Responsive Heart’. Let me again read a puritan prayer that is relevant to the subject and topic tonight. Tonight’s prayer is from ‘The Valley Of Vision’ page 98-99, or if you have the paperback version its page 55, entitled ‘victory’:

O Divine Redeemer, Great was thy goodness in undertaking my redemption, in consenting to be made sin for me, in conquering all my foes; Great was thy strength in enduring the extremities of divine wrath, in taking away the load of my iniquities; Great was thy love in manifesting thyself alive, in showing thy sacred wounds, that every fear might vanish, and every doubt be removed; Great was thy mercy in ascending to heaven in being crowned and enthroned there to intercede for me, there to succour me in temptation, there to open the eternal book, there to receive me finally to thyself; Great was thy wisdom in devising this means of salvation; Bathe my soul in rich consolations of thy resurrection life; Great was thy grace in commanding me to come hand in hand with thee to the Father, to be knit to him eternally, to discover in him my rest, to find in him my peace, to behold his glory, to honour him who is alone worthy; in giving me the Spirit as teacher, guide, power, that I may live repenting of sin, conquer Satan, find victory in life. When thou art absent all sorrows are here, When thou art present all blessings are mine.

Okay, let me read the scripture again which Sibbes uses:

Psalm 27:8

⁸When You said, “seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”

The scripture starts with David telling us first of what God commanded him to do, and us to do, ‘seek his face’, and the second part is David’s obedience to that command ‘my heart said to you, “your face,  Lord, I will seek.’

At the last meeting we spoke of how it’s both our privilege and a must that we seek God and come boldly but humbly to Him. We have the privilege and access that the saints who went before had. We are partakers, as Calvin talks of in the tulip acronym - Partakers with the saints.

Sibbes writes:

All truths are eternal truths, they die not as men do. David is dead and Moses is dead but the truth is not dead. “seek ye my face”. Paul is gone, Peter is gone. We are the David’s and the Moses’ and the Peters and the Pauls now. Those truths that were good for them are good for us.

I said last time that I think sometimes we think we don’t have that access to God. We do. I’m sure Moses, David, Peter and Paul all at times could have said ‘I’m unworthy of seeking You’. But it’s our privilege, it’s our right. For us in the new testament, since Christ, we have this access through His righteousness anyway. Not our own. This is why we can come to the throne room of grace with boldness (Hebrews 4:16). We need not fret about coming to God, yes humbly but boldly. Too often we allow our flesh and our sin to say ‘I must not, I cannot, I need to get myself into a more holy place’. Yet God’s Word tells us, and Sibbes quotes it in his sermon:

Matthew 11:28

²⁸Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

It’s not just that we can, but we must go to Him, and seek Him. Lest we carry that burden around with us.

Sibbes writes:

There is no such comfort for men who carry that sin wittingly and willingly.

No respite indeed, the Lord will simply allow you to carry the wrath of your own disobedience, yet we do not need to. Sibbes goes on and talks of how, by our lack of obedience, by our unwillingness to go to Him with all our heart in spite of our sin, it is ‘dishonouring God and his bounty’.

He says:

Has God not been so bountiful as to give us many instructions and such promises? And shall we not make them our own?

He then adds this heart-melting, beautiful truth:

What is the end of the ministry but to spread before us the unsearchable riches of Christ. They are yours if you will take them.

As I prepared, and I actually was talking to Fraser this morning of this, that on Sunday we didn’t have time to fully share verse 16 of 1st Corinthians chapter 2 but it’s very fitting for this. I may share more on Sunday or not, but let me read it anyway.

1 Corinthians 2:16

¹⁶ For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

Paul here is letting the Corinthian church know that man’s wisdom, man’s ways, man’s flesh cannot know God. But we who believe know God because we have His Spirit. Okay, let me just tie a few things together here; Spirit with spirit as it were.

When we live by the flesh, by carnal thoughts and feelings, we no longer take counsel from God, from the Holy Spirit, we, like the world, start to dictate what is truth because we are living carnally like the world. Have you ever had an atheist, or worldly ‘lovely’ person tell you how wrong you are about God?  And how they don’t believe in God, or that they don’t believe that is who God is, and they say: ‘God is not a God of this, but of acceptance, and He doesn’t care about xyz’? .

That is the world instructing God. But they don’t know any better because they don’t know Him, they are spiritually blind. But we have the mind of Christ, we both understand the mind of Christ and know God and truth. So in effect, we have no excuse for not taking all our baggage to God. Yet when we do not, we in turn start to, as believers, counsel God and lead Him, by our flesh. It’s not that He will be led by our flesh but rather, it’s because we have Christ in us, we are therefore trying to lead Him by ignoring His guidance.

The Word of God is under such attack today because believers are taking the lead and counselling God in whom He is. They are dictating who God is, outside of His Word. The Corinthian church were swapping Paul’s message, that was fully led by the Holy Spirit, and bringing man’s wisdom into the church and calling it God. It was not then and it is not now. Which is why I mentioned this, as it ties in with Sibbes in this point. Again I repeat Sibbes:

There is no such comfort for men who carry that sin wittingly and willingly.

Again, he adds :

Has God not been so bountiful as to give us many instructions and such promises? And shall we not make them our own?

We have to make His instruction our own by taking all we are, warts and all, to Him. Lest we start to dictate another truth to God that is not of truth but of our flesh. For a believer to not come boldly to Christ, to not say ‘yes Lord my heart will seek you’, is like dragging Jesus around by the arm as we wallow in our sin and disobedience.

Think of that for a moment. We have the mind of Christ, yet we walk in flesh, and when that flesh overtakes us, by our lack of seeking, we then in turn start instructing Christ. He will never leave us or forsake us, so we subject Him to our disobedience, instead of allowing the Word and the Spirit to punish our disobedience. This is why we must say ‘yes Lord my heart will seek you’, else our flesh will control us.

David seemed to have this continued, ongoing battle with people and situations overtaking his life, then he would seek God and his peace would return. Turn to Psalm 13. This is a great example of David’s battles, and I’m sure you will surely identify with it. This is how John MacArthur introduces this Psalm in his study bible:

These lines reintroduce the familiar triangle of the psalmist, his God and his enemies. This three way relationship produces perplexity and pain. In view of God’s absence he seems left to his own resources which are unable to deal with the realities of his enemies.
 

Those enemies, I will add here, are not all other people, but our own flesh can also be that enemy. Let me read the Psalm:

Psalm 13:1-6

¹How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
² How long shall I take counsel in my soul,
Having sorrow in my heart daily?
How long will my enemy be exalted over me?

³ Consider and hear me, O Lord my God;
Enlighten my eyes,
Lest I sleep the sleep of death;
⁴ Lest my enemy say,
“I have prevailed against him”;
Lest those who trouble me rejoice when I am moved.

⁵ But I have trusted in Your mercy;
My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.
⁶ I will sing to the Lord,
Because He has dealt bountifully with me.

Here we see the emotions, or the flesh of David being totally unable to cope with pain, attack, enemies, his feelings. He sees God as abandoning him; where is God? Well in truth, He is not being sought. It’s that simple. He is not being sought, because David is overwhelmed by his fear, his feelings, his flesh, his pain, his rejection, his abandonment. And in that he says ‘where are You?’. But God hasn’t went anywhere. Its David’s flesh that is taking over. Yet then he starts to seek God, and you will read this a lot in the Psalms, in fact you can with many characters in the bible, Peter being a brilliant early example in his faith. Peter sought, he followed from a distance when people and fear took over, and flesh.

David in the first two verses is hopeless, even saying ‘God you’re hiding You’re face from me’. We have to cut David slack here a bit, because as Spurgeon points out it’s a long assault, not a moment’s feeling of pain for David.

Spurgeon writes:

It is not under the sharpest, but the longest trials, that we are in most danger of fainting.

How quick are some to lose all means of strength and trust, from the least amount of sharpness? David was pressed and pursued for years, as was Job. Yet as soon as David, from verse three, once again refocuses on God, or we could say, ‘his heart said I will seek your face’, he had a new found zeal and gratitude. Notice the difference when he sought God, and realised it was not God who was hiding His face from him. But how his heart was clouded by pain and in turn not seeking Him:

Psalm 13:3-4 again:

³ Consider and hear me, O Lord my God;
Enlighten my eyes,
Lest I sleep the sleep of death;
⁴ Lest my enemy say,
“I have prevailed against him”;
Lest those who trouble me rejoice when I am moved.

His heart starts seeking Him again, he is now back having communion with God, more than he is obsessing over his trials, enemies and pain. Note what it says at the end of verse 4
‘lest my enemies rejoice when I’m moved’. I could spend weeks on that half a verse. Its profound in so many levels. The enemy, the devil loves that we are so shaken that we cannot seek God - that they rejoice in our weakness.

David here has shifted in two verses of prayer, to: ‘God help me be strong, so I don’t feel pain’, to: ‘God, help me trust You that Your name may not be weakened by them who mock. Let my life in You, reflect Your power’. The shift continues, he now moves onto seeing how hopeless he is without God, and how it’s all His work and His mercy, so what can man do to me? Trust is back, because his heart has sought His face.

Psalm 13:5-6

⁵ But I have trusted in Your mercy;
My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.
⁶ I will sing to the Lord,
Because He has dealt bountifully with me.

David’s heart once again sings, because he is full of gratitude for what God has forgiven him for, and taken away from him, when he deserved it not. He is not leaning on himself, or his flesh, or allowing anything to overtake him, because he is back relying on God and His, as John MacArthur calls it ‘divine deliverance’.

Spurgeon writes his ‘Treasury of David’ on these verses:

Prayer helps towards the increase and growth of grace, by drawing the habits of grace into exercise.

It’s hard to see and draw from the grace and mercy in which we have received, when we are overwhelmed with the flesh and self. Prayer brings us back to the place of both utter hopelessness but at the same time trust and gratitude. I could simply just keep reading to you Spurgeon on this.

He adds:

But by that time he has exercised himself a little in duty (prayer), his distemper wears off, the mists scatter, and his faith breaks out as the sun in its strength.

When our hearts respond to God, to seek His face, we change, we have a renewed strength, we change from ‘woe is me’, to ‘great is He’. From hopelessness, from self-will to His will, from selfish concern to declaring His glory. What is true fear, what is true despair, what is true depression, what is true lack of trust but a loss of deep gratitude and obedience to the Lord.

What makes enemies rejoice, what makes God seem weak, is it not that we fold and we walk not worthy of our calling. Is it not that we have a testimony that says ‘my God is not enough’? Do we think we are not God’s ambassadors? Yet how can we be good ambassadors, faithful servants, trusted men, if we seek Him not?

Sibbes says this in his sermon that when David prayed:

“Thy face will I seek”. His heart was weary and pliable now, as God would have it.
 

He goes on and then says profoundly:

God hath none to fight his battles against Satan and his kingdom of darkness but voluntaries. All of God’s people are voluntaries. They are not pressed soldiers; I mean not against their wills, in that sense.
 

Sibbes furnishes this difficult statement by saying this, knowing it’s a difficult one and one that could be taken out of context:

Our obedience to God, it must be pliable and cheerful, and voluntary.
 

God’s face was never out of reach or sight of David, it was David’s sight that was out of reaching to God. Yet when he did, he became a willing vessel to used by God to defeat His enemies, and bring glory to Him.

This is why we must say at all times, no matter the trial, or pain, or dart, or flesh: ‘Lord I will seek Your face. Use me as Your servant to defend You and honour You, that the enemy may never rejoice in my presence, due to my self-seeking.

Amen.