Charles Haddon Spurgeon's Evening Devotional For Friday May 19, 2017 |
Evening Time: 8:57 PM PST
"And he requested for himself that he might die." --1 Kings 19:4
It was a remarkable thing that the man who was never to die, for whom God had
ordained an infinitely better lot, the man who should be carried to heaven in a
chariot of fire, and be translated, that he should not see death--should thus
pray, "Let me die, I am no better than my fathers." We have here a memorable
proof that God does not always answer prayer in kind, though He always does in
effect. He gave Elias something better than that which he asked for, and thus
really heard and answered him. Strange was it that the lion-hearted Elijah
should be so depressed by Jezebel's threat as to ask to die, and blessedly kind
was it on the part of our heavenly Father that He did not take His desponding
servant at his word. There is a limit to the doctrine of the prayer of faith. We
are not to expect that God will give us everything we choose to ask for. We know
that we sometimes ask, and do not receive, because we ask amiss. If we ask for
that which is not promised--if we run counter to the spirit which the Lord would
have us cultivate--if we ask contrary to His will, or to the decrees of His
providence--if we ask merely for the gratification of our own ease, and without
an eye to His glory, we must not expect that we shall receive. Yet, when we ask
in faith, nothing doubting, if we receive not the precise thing asked for, we
shall receive an equivalent, and more than an equivalent, for it. As one
remarks, "If the Lord does not pay in silver, He will in gold; and if He does
not pay in gold, He will in diamonds." If He does not give you precisely what
you ask for, He will give you that which is tantamount to it, and that which you
will greatly rejoice to receive in lieu thereof. Be then, dear reader, much in
prayer, and make this evening a season of earnest intercession, but take heed
what you ask.
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