Lord help me (Quality: Good)

[0:00] As the Lord should enable me this morning, I would ask your attention to a portion of God's Word in the 15th chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew.

[0:11] The Gospel according to Matthew, the 15th chapter, and the part of the 25th verse. Lord, help me. Lord, help me.

[0:30] It is perhaps important to notice, friends, the connection that there is between this short prayer and what is recorded concerning this woman previously.

[0:42] Some persons might say, well, this prayer, of course, is the outcome of great trouble. Her daughter was in deep distress, vexed for the devil, and all remedies perhaps have proved to be unflaming.

[0:56] And here is a woman bowed down under the burden of this, so concerned, so troubled by her daughter, hearing that here is a man who could do some wonderful things and hoping, believing, of course, as we are told here, that he could, if he would, do a very wonderful thing for her.

[1:14] And she comes to him and says, Lord, help me. You may say this is the outcome of necessity, and it's the outcome of distress. It's the outcome of helplessness.

[1:25] But I do want you to notice that in the writing of the scripture, under the power of the Holy Ghost, we are told, friends, that this was the outcome of worship. And that, of course, is a completely different matter, and yet it is often associated with the other.

[1:42] Can a person really come and from their heart pray to Jesus and say, Lord, help me, but what they're really worshipping him. And if they are real worshippers of the Lord Jesus Christ, will they not often be found saying, Lord, help me, and that not merely with their lips, but from their hearts.

[2:02] I am sure, my friends, that if we want some sign or evidence of our high calling in Christ Jesus, if we would know that we are true believers in him, if we are worried and anxious as to whether our religious profession is genuine, or whether it has arisen just simply out of some human-inspired emotion, well, perhaps we might be able to measure it by this little word.

[2:28] Have we ever prayed from our heart, Lord, help me? Have we ever really known what it is to worship Jesus Christ as we've gone to him in our need and prayed that he would help us?

[2:39] Is there a little confidence that rises in our heart that as we go, this one, if he wills to do so, he is certainly able to help us, whatever may be the nature of the need or the distress that a person may be in.

[2:54] And so I do feel, friends, that if we call ourselves worshippers of God, and of course many of us know what it is to come here very, very regularly, that we might inquire as to the genuineness of our worship as to whether in a similar dependent spirit we have had to come and humble ourselves before Christ, the very mercy seat of our God and say, Lord, help me.

[3:20] You see, this woman really did believe that Jesus Christ had great power. I have a feeling in my heart, friends, that this woman really did believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God.

[3:32] Let such traditions as this be addressed to one who is Jesus of Nazareth and concerning a matter which affects a person possessed with a devil under the influence of Satan.

[3:47] Well, friends, it's only God, the Son of God, the eternal birth that can deal with matters like that. Perhaps the dear woman may have been in a good deal of confusion of mind about many things.

[3:59] She may have had alternating hopes and fears as she came to the Lord Jesus Christ. But nevertheless, my friends, she did make her appeal. She did cry.

[4:09] She did cry. She did tell the Lord virtually how helpless she was. And there was only He that could help her. That without Him, there was no hope whatsoever.

[4:20] And so she worshipped and she prayed, saying, Lord, help me. Well, I do feel, friends, that perhaps we might say right at the beginning that this is one of the great evidences of Christian calling, you know.

[4:34] And I'm sure of this, that it isn't just simply once in one's life that we have to go to the Lord and say, Lord, help me. The more deeply a person is taught their sinfulness and their dependence of the God for His constant grace and His salvation in Jesus Christ, the more constantly they will know the occasion in their heart and life of this cry, Lord, help me.

[5:00] I know it's a very short one, but it would seem to me that sometimes, my friends, short prayers are prayers of great need, of great pain, of great sorrow, and of great distress.

[5:14] They seem to carry with them a greater fullness than very prolonged prayers. You know the Pharisees were very guilty of one thing, and that was of making long prayers.

[5:26] I'm not suggesting, of course, that if their prayers had been lengthy, and they had been prayers that they prayed out of their heart under the sacred influence of the Holy Ghost, that the Lord would have objected to the length of their prayer.

[5:41] Because I do know that there have been many of the dear people of God who have been wonderfully blessed in prayer, and sometimes they have been able to pray to the Lord for hours, to pray through a whole night in some time of great trouble, and I'm sure the Lord hasn't been offended with their long prayer.

[6:01] But nevertheless, the trouble with the Pharisees was this, that whilst they continued a long time in prayer, they preferred to be seen of men rather than to be seen of God.

[6:12] Now this woman, I feel, my friends, she wasn't bothered as to what men thought about her when she came to the Lord Jesus Christ. That wasn't her concern. Her concern was that she might be received by Christ, and that her prayer might be heard, accepted, and that it might be answered.

[6:32] And of course it was. The Lord is compassionate and tender and hot to those who come to him with great need, and there, out of the deep feelings of their distress, they cry, Lord, help me.

[6:46] You may say to me, of course, well, this prayer is so short that you really wouldn't like to speak very much about the strength of faith associated with it, Mr. Rowell, would you?

[6:57] And my dear friends, let me assure you of this. It isn't what I've got to say about the strength of faith associated with this short prayer. The important matter is what the Lord has to say about it.

[7:10] And if we go on a little further, you will notice as the Lord says to this woman who prayed this short prayer, O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto the even as thou wilt.

[7:22] We're not faced here with any human speculation as to the degree of faith, its presence, or its absence in the case of this woman. But we know by the witness of God that here was one who did possess a great faith, and she expressed it in a very short, humble, mean prayer when she cried to the Lord, Lord help me.

[7:47] And then I realized that we mustn't confine this prayer in just simply conditions of this kind. You see, friends, there seems to me to be such a variety of experience through which a child of God, a true believer, may be passing, which will give occasion to this cry, Lord help me.

[8:07] Of course, the great need of the woman was something that was really outside of herself. It was her daughter's concern that weighed so heavily upon her. It was something, someone that she loved, very dearly loved, and she would have seen them healed and restored if only it could be so.

[8:25] And therefore, on behalf of another, she prayed, Lord help me. Now I do know, friends, that with all the great vital necessity that is upon us that we should pray for ourselves in every knowledge of our need that we might have our hosts enlarged as well to be able to pray for ourselves.

[8:45] There are times when I've sat down after praying and I have feared lest my prayers have been essentially selfish. Now I don't want my friends to stay there.

[8:57] You may say to me, of course, some of you, ah, but prayer begins there, Mr. Brown. I believe it does, friends. I rather fear it does begin there, but it doesn't end there.

[9:08] I rather think, you know, it begins where the poor Pharisee had to begin, the poor publican had to begin, the one who was despised by the Pharisee and of whom the Pharisee said, I thank thee more that I'm not like that publican.

[9:22] And yet, you know, there was a beginning of a very good thing in that publican, a beginning that would have a very wonderful end. The man just simply smites upon his breast as though he would chasten himself for the evil that he has found within himself.

[9:40] It is only the eagles we've done, but it's the thing that has prompted the evil, it's the heart of evil within us that that man would smite against as it were. And so the man smites upon his breast and he cries, God be merciful to me a sinner.

[9:56] But you see, friends, that's a beginning, but it isn't all. There is a lot else afterward. The Lord says that man went down to his house justified rather than the other.

[10:08] And if a man is enabled, following his prayer, to know something of the blessed justification of God in his own soul concerning the thing that he's prayed for, then, friends, he'll find that that sentence of justification is to the enlargement of the spirit of prayer within him.

[10:29] You think, for instance, of a little child who perhaps has thought in their mind something like this about their parents, I would like so and so for Christmas, but I don't know whether mummy or daddy would get it for me or be able to get it for me.

[10:45] But they go to their mum and father and they say, I would like so and so for Christmas, mother or father, and Christmas die, of course, it's there.

[10:55] and so they prove, friends, that the parents are first of all willing to give that thing that the child has desired and also they're able to do it. I have a rather feeling that next Christmas, you know, they'll be asking for something else.

[11:11] They may be asking for something a little bit more difficult to get and perhaps something that's a little bit more expensive to buy. Why? Because they have been encouraged by the fact that they have already received something which their parents are willing and able to give to them.

[11:28] Of course, I realize that this can't keep on going with men. You can't keep on asking and asking and asking for something more and more expensive. There will come a time when human ability just simply draws the line and says, well, I can't go any further.

[11:44] But you don't find that with God. With regard to spiritual blessings, the blessings of the soul, whether that be of cells or for another person, the Lord doesn't say to you, you can go so far and then you must stop.

[11:59] He says, open your mouth wide and I will think. If there is one thing, my friends, that the devil wants to succeed in doing with you is to shut up your heart and your mind in your prayers to God.

[12:13] To suggest that there is a limit which you must impose upon yourself when you go and pray to the Lord. Oh, that we may know, an enlargement that is not just simply of human logic.

[12:26] I realize that some of the things I've been talking to you about, the connection with children and their parents seem to be just purely logical, but something that isn't just simply of human logic, but something that is based upon the clear revelation of this blessed word.

[12:42] Ask, and ye shall receive. See, and ye shall find, not, and it shall be opened unto you. Now, friends, I believe I have, as a servant of God this morning, a right, a sacred authority, to declare to you that that is the will of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for those who know their sore need are sinners, and know the sore need of others are sinners, and that they shall venture, the Lord enabling them, and he will, to the throne of his grace to lie such a face before him.

[13:19] And of course, I did mention the variety of this, the way in which the people of the Lord do have to go to the Lord to ask him for things. Now, just for those or two this morning, I would like us to think, my friends, of the one to whom this woman went, and the one to who you and I, if we are praying so, who fainted so by the Spirit of God, the one, my friends, for whom you are.

[13:45] I want you to remember, first of all, that the Lord Jesus Christ teaches us this, that whilst he was ever ready to receive petitioners, whilst he was here among men, though he would ascend into heaven above, he promised, my friends, that persons would be able to ask frequent greater things than they did in the day of his incarnation, and they should receive and do greater things than they had done in the days of his incarnation.

[14:17] Ye shall do greater things than these and see greater things than these because I go unto my path. Now, you see, friends, I don't want you to be kept captive in some kind of field of bondage that says, well, if only Jesus was here in his person, then we might have over this or that being done.

[14:37] he is the great remedy for all sin and evil and need, and if only I could go to him, it would be well. If he shall ask of my father anything in my name, I will do it, saith the Lord Jesus Christ.

[14:54] My dear friend, I hope the Holy Ghost would interpret that word rightly to you, but nevertheless I must proclaim it as part of the word of God to those who would seek my faith, the Lord at the mercy seat.

[15:07] Oh, friends, it's wonderfully encouraging in the gospel, particularly as it speaks of the needs of sinful men and women, boys and girls, and that blessing way of approach unto the Father that has been opened for sinners by the precious love of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

[15:27] Now, what are the character of this one to whom these praying souls come, and they say, Lord, help me. Well, in the first place, friends, I want us to remember that there seem to be three great offices of the Lord Jesus Christ that are clearly stated in the word of God.

[15:47] The first, of course, is the office of Christ as a prophet, and then we often speak of his office as a priest, and then we often speak of his office as a king.

[15:58] And I believe, my friends, that this woman, it could be clearly seen that she came to Jesus Christ in his office as a prophet, and she also had need to come to him in his office as a priest, and she also came to him and proved that he fully maintained his office as a great king.

[16:17] Now, just a word about these three characteristics in connection with the word of the text. Lord, help me, thou art a prophet. Now, what is it that sinners really need God to do for them as a prophet?

[16:34] It seems to me, if I can take a passage of the Old Testament and apply it to our present condition, it's along these lines. We need the Lord to speak words of peace and not of evil to give us an expected end.

[16:50] Now, that's what we really want the Lord to do, to speak words of peace and not of evil to give us an expected end. Now, if the Holy Ghost has been your teacher in any measure, friends, there's one thing he certainly would have made you know, and that is that because you have sinned against God, there are dreadful words of evil that are written against you in his holy law.

[17:14] Don't forget that, there are dreadful words of evil that are written against you as a sinner in the holy law of God. Think of that word, the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

[17:29] You say to me, well, of course it's pretty evident that that word is true because we see funerals every day and we can't help but think that, well, there is some truth in such a word as that that the soul that sinneth, it shall die, and of course, everybody has to and so everybody has to die.

[17:45] But you know, there is another kind of death other than the physical Lord. There is eternal death as well as eternal life.

[17:57] There is hell as well as him. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. I don't know to what degree the law may have entered that sin may have abounded in you.

[18:08] Not, my friends, that you know that the demand or the command of the law can multiply your transgressions, the multiplication of your transgressions is by reason of the depravity and evil of your own heart and nature.

[18:22] But when the law enters, there in our knowledge of our effects, there is an abounding. It is the light of testimony of the revealed will of God in his law that informs us and teaches us and convinces us of the magnitude of our sin and of our error against God.

[18:42] But you know, friends, it's not our only sentence where the more entered, sin abounded, but he goes on to speak of something else, but where sin abounded, the grace of God did much more abound.

[18:55] Think of him, where the more has entered under the power of the Holy Ghost, convincing of sin and causing a poor sinner to cry with real intent concerning themselves as well as others who are in the same position, Lord, help me, Lord, save me, Lord, forgive my sins, undertake for me in the awful guilt that hangs upon me, deliver me to...

[19:18] ... ... ... ... ...

[19:45] ... ...! have had all sorts of sadness in your life, mourned over dreadful losses and bereavements, but oh my friends, is there any trouble like the trouble of sin brought home to a conscience that now knows its guilt, home to a heart that is pierced and wounded by the conviction of sin? Here indeed is great call upon me in the day of trouble. I will hear thee and thou shalt glorify me. A prompt upon it, an extinction, a holy dust-beak. This is a wonderful thing, friends, that the Lord does still speak, that by the Holy Ghost that proceedeth from the Father and from the Son there is one appointed by Jesus of pain for us in the offering of Jesus on our behalf, whereby he shall become a comforter to the troubled heart.

[20:38] Yes, friends, the word of Jesus is still spoken to the hearts of men, even more powerfully. But in those days when the poor woman came to Jesus and said, Lord help me, you say to me, more powerfully. There were many, many persons who heard the actual voices of the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ speaking in their hearing, but it had no power to them. But be quite sure of this, my friends, that if the Holy Ghost takes the word of Jesus and with the authority of his own voice speaks it into the heart of a poor sinner, he will have an abiding event in that person's soul.

[21:18] Ah, friends, it would indeed. Yes, it would indeed. Don't forget, my friends, that the Lord Jesus Christ tells his disciples that there will be greater things that they will know after his death, that when he gets to heaven and sits there interceding for them at the right hand of God, through the great blessing of such a season as Pentecost, there will be greater things that they shall know than they have already known during his lifetime among men upon this earth.

[21:47] Oh, friends, the gospel is a wonderful thing, and it's a wonderful provision for poor sinners and evil. There is no word that they can go to the Lord with, but what through the prophet, there is a word of peace and not of evil to give and expect it in.

[22:04] I expect a good number of persons here have heard of the why in which the Lord has spoken a word, home to the heart in a time of trouble. One of our children only yesterday was speaking and reciting a few verses concerning Paul Gearhart, who lived in Germany years ago.

[22:23] How that man was excluded from his living and expelled from the town and he had to just go off and hadn't got any food, hadn't got any money, the payment of an hospitable innkeeper for a bit of lodging one night, the wife and the children going hungry to bed and crying themselves to sleep.

[22:44] Why this? Why this? Lord, help me. Lord, help me. I expect that's all the poor Gearhart could say when he went out to trample in the woods and try and pray to God.

[22:56] Lord, help me. Little prayers are very full prayers, you know. Yes, well. Doesn't need a multiplication of words. We may be guilty there. But all my friends, the little prayer that goes out of the heart, Lord, help me.

[23:10] Enters into the ear of God. And what will I know? Read about this Lord into whose ear it enters. Why, says the writer of Scripture, it enters into the ear of the Lord God of Sabiah.

[23:23] What's it mean? The Lord God who has everybody calling in everything at his disposal. The Lord God of hosts, that's what it means. And friends, it was so easy.

[23:34] The Lord comes, but he speaks his word before his kingly power is seen. I know, the messenger knocks at the door during the night and says, I've got provision for you, poor Gearhart.

[23:46] You can have a town to preach it and the people to preach to, and a church to preach it as well. And I will maintain you and provide for you. And here's a token of my master's love to you.

[23:58] Thank you for your present needs and also for your future. Ah, friends, Christ is a king and can dispense his bounty in a wonderful way. But first of all, what's he do?

[24:09] He sends his word as a prophet into the heart of a poor man and strengthens his faith and gives his deliverance from his fears and assures him that it is well with him.

[24:19] Although the messenger hasn't knocked at the door yet. No, but he comes back out of the wood very different to what he goes in. And what is the Lord saying? Commit thy way unto the Lord and trust also in him and he shall bring it to part.

[24:35] Put your confidence in me. Hope in me only. Don't trust nobody else. Don't go squinting about like John Barrett said in every corner to try and find some help from me.

[24:46] But fix your eyes solely and only upon me. Look unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of your faith. If he's begun the exercise of faith in your soul, he'll carry it on and finish it.

[24:59] He won't bless the soul with a word in a beautiful sinner to trust in confidence in that word that he has spoken. But what he will fulfill the word in new time. And so it was, of course, with this man.

[25:11] But I want you to know, this thing, it's the word of a prophet. It's the word of a prophet. Yes, it is the word of a prophet. These words of Jesus are very precious ones, you know.

[25:23] Oh, very precious. Can you really believe it? Sometimes, friends, I tell you, I can hardly believe the truth of this. I have loved thee.

[25:34] Me, me, me. Can it possibly be that the Lord would speak such a word as that to me? The one who feels himself to be the cheapest of sinners, to me, such a word as that?

[25:47] I have loved thee with an everlasting love. And therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn thee. What, Lord, my daughter ill, is that how you've drawn me to your feet?

[25:59] To let the devil tear my daughter like that, is that the way you've brought me to your feet? To allow my husband to die and leave me with three little children.

[26:12] Is that how you've brought me to your feet? I have loved thee with an everlasting love. And therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn thee.

[26:24] Lord, help me. It's the word of prophet, it's the word of prophet. And it's a word that carries all such authority and power and it reveals the glory and the grace of Jesus Christ with it.

[26:36] You see him there, the one who has spoken and still does speak, and whose word can never be removed. Ah, the blessed prophet, friend, is the prophet of God. But then, go on and go further.

[26:48] I mustn't tarry those, the action of grace. I was particularly impressed by this when I mentioned the matter of the word cedar in the 20th Psalm, you know. Ah, it stands there.

[27:01] Accept all thine offerings and thy burnt sacrifices. Multiply your petition that God grant you may by faith in Jesus Christ.

[27:12] Don't come to an empty-handed, my friends, but full-handed with your need, but empty-handed with regard to your merit. Come like that, empty-handed with regard to marriage or worth, hanging alone upon Christ for the provision of your need.

[27:26] But, oh, my friends, there may be an extending of multiply petitions and needs in the hand, but what's the hope? Accept all thy burnt sacrifices.

[27:40] The suffering of man of God. The suffering of man of God. God grant, friends, to die. You and I may have a little sight of the suffering of man of God.

[27:51] The one who in his priestly position has offered a sacrifice, but not a sacrifice outside of himself. He has offered himself as a sacrifice for the sins of his people.

[28:03] Oh, sinner, what do you think? What do you think? Oh, what does it really mean to you that Jesus, the Son of God, should die in your sin?

[28:15] Die for your sins according to the scripture. Oh, friends, what does it do to your heart? Does it make you love him as you sorrow with him? Does it make you hate yourself and love your sins?

[28:30] Does it do that? Is there that blessing consequence? Does it make you love the way of righteousness and obedience? Would you serve him and follow him? Do you pray for grace, my prince, being able to do so day by day, and thereby be able to glorify this dear Son of God who suffered for sins not his own?

[28:50] Yes, there's the priest, you know. There's the priest. This poor woman that came and said, Lord, help me, my daughter's grievously vexed with the devil. You know, my friends, there's just two things you've got to remember, and that is that she was a sinner and her daughter was a sinner.

[29:08] Come together. She was a sinner and her daughter was a sinner. And my friends, before that season of I.E. of delivering her daughter from the torments of the devil could be grounded, sins need to be forgiven.

[29:23] A sacrifice must be honored. But I mustn't pause it. Then there is the office of Christ as a king. Lord, help me. Lord, help me. Isn't it a wonderful thing, friends, that there must ever be a limitation placed upon you?

[29:40] Go to the wealthiest man you can possibly find, the multimillionaire, and if you were to ask him, my friends, for a certain thing, he wouldn't be able to give it. If it was something beyond his possession and beyond his capability to give it, he wouldn't be able to give it.

[29:56] Of course there's a number, is it? He perhaps wouldn't be willing to give it either. Wouldn't be willing to give it. But you know, friends, with Christ, the mighty king, there is not only the ability, the inexhaustible ability.

[30:10] A fullness resides in Jesus our head and ever abides to answer our need. The inexhaustible ability to give. But there is also a wonderful willingness. Come unto men.

[30:23] Come unto men. Why? I'll all be that lay when I have been laid, and I will give you rest. I'll give you rest. I'll deliver you. I can save you.

[30:34] I can comfort you. I can deliver you from your distress. I will be with you as you walk through the fires of affliction, the floods of adversity. Ah, ability and willingness.

[30:48] Love, I am with thee always, even unto the end. Is that to wonder who we come? My friends, if we do. You know, I believe that if the Spirit of God has taught us how to come, and we come with great need and great consciousness of our guilt and unworthiness, there'll be one universal way in which we shall ever come to Christ.

[31:13] And it's like Moses had to come to the burning bush. Christ was there. The glory of God was there. The eternal word was there. The great prophet of the Lord was there. The bountiful king was there in the burning bush.

[31:26] But as he comes, you notice the Lord says, take off your shoes, from off your feet. The place where on you stand is holy ground. If you haven't come like that, friends, God grant you that.

[31:40] That you may have to take off everything of yourself, and everything that you are, and everything you've done, your best, your most worthy, the thing that you felt you will be acceptable to God and to the ground.

[31:53] May you have to take it all off and cast it from you and say, Lord, I must mention, poor and naked, hell-deserving sinner upon myself and from my grace.

[32:05] And in such character to whom the Lord says, come, and I will receive you. I will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and my daughters, saith the Lord God Almighty.

[32:19] Sometimes we sing, and with this I shall conclude, sometimes we sing, my friends, you come, come to fill me, come just as you are. May the Lord add his blessing.

[32:31] Amen.