THE PRAYER OF JABEZ
THE PRAYER OF JABEZ
No. 994. Delivered by C. H. Spurgeon, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“Oh that you would bless me indeed!” 1 Chronicles 4:10.
We know very little about Jabez, except that he was more honorable than his brethren, and that he was called Jabez because his mother bore him with sorrow. It will sometimes happen that where there is the most sorrow in the antecedents, there will be the most pleasure in the sequel. As the furious storm gives place to the clear sunshine, so the night of weeping precedes the morning of joy. Sorrow the harbinger; gladness the prince it ushers in. Cowper says: “The path of sorrow, and that path alone, Leads to the place where sorrow is unknown.”
To a great extent we find that we must sow in tears before we can reap in joy. Many of our works for Christ have cost us tears. Difficulties and disappointments have wrung our soul with anguish. Yet those projects that have cost us more than ordinary sorrow, have often turned out to be the most honorable of our undertakings. While our grief called the offspring of desire “Benoni,” the son of my sorrow, our faith has been afterwards able to give it a name of delight, “Benjamin,” the son of my right hand.
You may expect a blessing in serving God if you are enabled to persevere under many discouragements. The ship is often long coming home, because detained on the road by excess of cargo. Expect her freight to be the better when she reaches the port. More honorable than his brethren was the child whom his mother bore with sorrow.
As for this Jabez, whose aim was so well pointed, his fame so far sounded, his name so lastingly embalmed; he was a man of prayer. The honor he enjoyed would not have been worth having if it had not been vigorously contested and equitably won. His devotion was the key to his promotion. Those are the best honors that come from God, the award of grace with the acknowledgment of service. When Jacob was surnamed Israel, he received his princedom after a memorable night of prayer. Surely it was far more honorable to him than if it had been bestowed upon him as a flattering distinction by some earthly emperor. The best honor is that which a man gains in communion with the Most High.
Jabez, we are told, was more honorable than his brethren, and his prayer is forthwith recorded, as if to intimate that he was also more prayerful than his brethren. We are told of what petitions his prayer consisted. All through it was very significant and instructive. We have only time to take one clause of it; indeed, that one clause may be said to comprehend the rest: “Oh that you would bless me indeed!” I commend it as a prayer for yourselves, dear brethren and sisters; one which will be available at all seasons; a prayer to begin Christian life with, a prayer to end it with, a prayer which would never be unseasonable in your joys or in your sorrows. Oh that you, the God of Israel, the covenant God, would bless me indeed! The very pith of the prayer seems to lie in that word, “indeed.” There are many varieties of blessing. Some are blessings only in name: they gratify our wishes for a moment, but permanently disappoint our expectations. They charm the eye, but pall on the taste. Others are mere temporary blessings: they perish with the using. Though for awhile they regale the senses, they cannot satisfy the higher cravings of the soul. But, “Oh that you would bless me indeed!”
I know whom God blesses shall be blessed. The thing good in itself is bestowed with the good-will of the giver, and shall be productive of so much good fortune to the recipient that it may well be esteemed as a blessing “indeed,” for there is nothing comparable to it. Let the grace of God prompt it, let the choice of God appoint it, let the bounty of God confer it, and then the endowment shall be something godlike indeed; something worthy of the lips that pronounce the benediction, and verily to be craved by every one who seeks honor that is substantial and enduring. “Oh that you would bless me indeed!”
Think it over, and you will see that there is a depth of meaning in the expression. We may set this in contrast with human blessings: “Oh that you would bless me indeed!” It is very delightful to be blessed by our parents, and those venerable friends whose benedictions come from their hearts, and are backed up by their prayers. Many a poor man has had no other legacy to leave his children except his blessing, but the blessing of an honest, holy, Christian father is a rich treasure to his son. One might well feel it were a thing to be deplored through life if he had lost a parent’s blessing. We like to have it.
The blessing of our spiritual parents is consolatory. Though we believe in no priestcraft, we like to live in the affections of those who were the means of bringing us to Christ, and from whose lips we were instructed in the things of God. And how very precious is the blessing of the poor! I do not wonder that Job treasured that up as a sweet thing. “When the ear heard me, then it blessed me.” If you have relieved the widow and the fatherless, and their thanks are returned to you in benediction, it is no mean reward.
But, dear friends, after all; all that parents, relatives, saints, and grateful people can do in the way of blessing, falls very far short of what we desire to have. O Lord, we would have the blessings of our fellow-creatures, the blessings that come from their hearts; but, “Oh that You would bless me indeed!” for you can bless with authority. Their blessings may be but words, but yours are effectual. They may often wish what they cannot do, and desire to give what they have not at their own disposal, but your will is omnipotent. You did create the world with but a word. O that such omnipotence would now bespeak me your blessing! Other blessings may bring us some tiny cheer, but in your favor is life. Other blessings are mere tittles in comparison with your blessing; for your blessing is the title “to an inheritance incorruptible” and unfading, to “a kingdom which cannot be moved.”
Well therefore might David pray in another place, “With your blessing let the house of your servant be blessed forever.” Perhaps in this place, Jabez may have put the blessing of God in contrast with the blessings of men. Men will bless you when you do well for yourself. They will praise the man who is successful in business. Nothing succeeds like success. Nothing has so much the approval of the general public as a man’s prosperity. Alas! they do not weigh men’s actions in the balances of the sanctuary, but in quite other scales. You will find those about you who will commend you if you are prosperous; or like Job’s comforters, condemn you if you suffer adversity. Perhaps there may be some feature about their blessings that may please you, because you feel you deserve them. They commend you for your patriotism: you have been a patriot. They commend you for your generosity: you know you have been self-sacrificing.
Well, but after all, what is there in the verdict of man? At a trial, the verdict of the policeman who stands in the court, or of the spectators who sit in the court-house, amounts to just nothing. The man who is being tried feels that the only thing that is of importance at all will be the verdict of the jury, and the sentence of the judge. So it will little avail us whatever we may do, how others commend or censure. Their blessings are not of any great value. But, “Oh that you would bless me,” that you would say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Commend the feeble service that through your grace my heart has rendered. That will be to bless me indeed.
Men are sometimes blessed in a very fulsome sense by flattery. There are always those who, like the fox in the fable, hope to gain the cheese by praising the crow. They never saw such plumage, and no voice could be so sweet as yours. The whole of their mind is set, not on you, but on what they are to gain by you. The race of flatterers is never extinct, though the flattered usually flatter themselves it is so. They may conceive that men flatter others, but all is so palpable and transparent when heaped upon themselves, that they accept it with a great deal of self-complacency, as being perhaps a little exaggerated, but after all exceedingly near the truth.
We are not very apt to take a large discount off the praises that others offer us; yet, were we wise, we should press to our bosom those who censure us; and we should always keep at arm’s length those who praise us, for those who censure us to our face cannot possibly be making a market of us; but with regard to those who extol us, rising early, and using loud sentences of praise, we may suspect, and we shall very seldom be unjust in the suspicion, that there is some other motive in the praise which they render to us than that which appears on the surface.
Young man, are you placed in a position where God honors you? Beware of flatterers. Or have you come into a large estate? Have you abundance? There are always flies where there is honey. Beware of flattery. Young woman, are you fair to look upon? There will be those about you that will have their designs, perhaps their evil designs, in lauding your beauty. Beware of flatterers. Turn aside from all these who have honey on their tongue, because of the poison of asps that is under it. Bethink you of Solomon’s caution, “meddle not with him that flatters with his lips.” Cry to God, “Deliver me from all this vain adulation, which nauseates my soul.” So shall you pray to him the more fervently, “Oh that you would bless me indeed!”
Let me have your benediction, which never says more than it means; which never gives less than it promises. If you take then the prayer of Jabez as being put in contrast with the benedictions which come from men, you see much force in it.
But we may put it in another light, and compare the blessing Jabez craved with those blessings that are temporal and transient. There are many bounties given to us mercifully by God for which we are bound to be very grateful; but we must not set too much store by them. We may accept them with gratitude, but we must not make them our idols. When we have them we have great need to cry, “Oh that you would bless me indeed, and make these inferior blessings real blessings;” and if we have them not, we should with greater vehemence cry, “Oh that we may be rich in faith, and if not blessed with these external favors, may we be blessed spiritually, and then we shall be blessed indeed.” Let us review some of these mercies, and just say a word or two about them.
One of the first cravings of men’s hearts is wealth. So universal the desire to gain it, that we might almost say it is a natural instinct. How many have thought if they once possessed it they should be blessed indeed! But there are ten thousand proofs that happiness consists not in the abundance which a man possesses. So many instances are well known to you all, that I need not quote any to show that riches are not a blessing indeed. They are rather apparently than really so. Hence, it has been well said, that when we see how much a man has we envy him; but could we see how little he enjoys we should pity him. Some that have had the most easy circumstances have had the most uneasy minds. Those who have acquired all they could wish, had their wishes been at all sane, have been led by the possession of what they had to be discontented because they had not more.