Saints are like to meet with needy times, or with such times as will show them that they need a continual assistance of the grace of God, that they may go rightly through this world. This is a motive that wears a spur in its heel, a spur to prick us forward to supplicate at the throne of grace. This needy time is in other places called the perilous time, the evil day, the hour and power of darkness, the day of temptation, the cloudy and dark day (2 Tim. 3: 1; Eph. 6: 13; Luke 22: 53; Heb. 3: 8; Ezek. 34: 12; Gen. 47: 9; Matt. 6: 34). And indeed, in the general, all the days of our pilgrimage here are evil, yea, every day has a sufficiency of evil in it to destroy the best saint that breathes, were it not for the grace of God. But there are also, as I have hinted, particular special times, times more eminently dangerous and hazardous unto saints.
1. There are their young days, the days of their youth and childhood in grace.
This day is usually attended with much evil towards them that are asking the way to Zion with their faces thitherward. Now the devil has lost a sinner; there is a captive has broke prison, and one run away from his master; now hell seems to be awakened from sleep, the devils are come out, they roar, and roaring they seek to recover their runaway. Now tempt him, threaten him, flatter him, stigmatise him, throw dust into his eyes, poison him with error, spoil him while he is upon the potter’s wheel; any thing to keep him from coming to Jesus Christ. And is not this a needy time? does not such an one want abundance of grace? is it not of absolute necessity that you, if you are the man thus beset, should ply it at the throne of grace, for mercy and grace to help you in such a time of need as this is? To want a spirit of prayer now is as much as your life is worth. O, therefore, you that know what I say, you that are broke loose from hell, that are fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before you, and that do hear the lion roar after you, and that are kept awake with the continual voice of his chinking chain, cry as you fly; yea, the promise is, that they that come to God with weeping, with supplication, he will lead them. Well, this is one needy time, now your hedge is low, now your branch is tender, now you are but in the bud. Pray that you may not be marred in the potter’s hand.
2. The time of prosperity is also a time of need, I mean of your spiritual prosperity.
For as Satan can tell how to suit temptations for you in the day of your want, so he has those that can entangle you in the day of your fulness. He has his spiritual wickednesses in the high and heavenly places (Eph. 6: 12). He can tell how to lay a snare for you in the land of Canaan, as well as in the wilderness; in your time of receiving good things, as well as in your hungry and empty hours. Nay, such times seem to be the most dangerous, not in themselves, but through the deceits of our heart. Hence Moses gives this caution to the children of Israel, that when God had given them the promised land, and vineyards, and wells, and olive trees, and when they had eaten and were full, ‘Then,’ says he, ‘beware lest thou forget the Lord which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage’ (Deut. 6: 10-13). And again, he doubles this caution, saying, ‘When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God, for the good land which he hath given thee. Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day; lest when thou hast eaten and art full,’ and thou in all good things art increased, ‘then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage’ (Deut. 8: 10-14). All this may be applied spiritually. For there are, as I said, snares laid for us in our best things; and he that has great enjoyments, and forgets to pray for grace to keep him humble then, shall quickly be where Peter was, after his knowledge of the Lord Jesus by the revelation of the Father.
3. Another needy time is a time when men are low and empty as to worldly good; this time is full of temptations and snares.
At this time, men will, if they look not well to their doings and goings, be tempted to strain courtesies both with conscience and with God’s Word, and adventure to do things that are dangerous, and that have a tendency to make all their religion and profession vain. This, holy Agur was aware of; so he prayed, Let me not be rich and full, lest I deny thee; let me not be poor, lest I steal, and take the name of my God in vain (Prov. 30: 7-9). There are many inconveniences that attend him that is fallen into decay in this world. It is an evil day with him, and the devils will be as busy with him, as the flies are with a lean and scabbed sheep. It shall go hard but such a man shall be full of maggots; full of silly, foolish, idle inventions, to get up, and to abound with fulness again. It is not a time now, will Satan say, to retain a tender conscience, to regard your word or promise, to pay for what you buy, or to stick at pilfering, and filch from thy neighbour. This, Agur was afraid of; therefore he prayed that God would keep him from that which would be to him a temptation to do it. How many in our day have, on these very accounts, brought religion to a very ill savour, and themselves into the snare of the devil, and all because they have not addicted themselves to pray to God for grace to help in this time of need, but rather have left off the thing that is good, and given up themselves to the temptations of the devil, and the subtle and ensnaring motions of the flesh.
4. Another needy time is the day of persecution; this is called, as was hinted before, ‘the hour of darkness,’ ‘the cloudy and dark day.’
This day, therefore, is full of snares, and of evils of every kind. Here is the fear of man, the terrors of a prison, of loss of goods and life. Now all things look black, now the fiery trial is come. He that cannot now pray, he that now applies not himself to God on the throne of grace, by the priesthood of Jesus Christ, is like to take a fall before all men, a foul fall, a fall that will not only break his own bones, but also the hearts of those that fear God and behold it: ‘Come therefore boldly unto the throne of grace, that you may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.’
5. Another time of need is that time wherein you change your condition, and enter into a new relation.
For here also the snares and traps lie waiting for thee. There is a hopeful child goes to service, or to be an apprentice; there is a young man, a young maid, enters into a married condition, and though they pray before, yet they leave off to pray then. Why, these people are oftentimes ruined and undone. The reason is, this change is attended with new snares, with new cares, and with new temptations, in the which — because through unwatchfulness they are not aware — they are taken, drawn to perdition and destruction by them. Many in my short day have gone, I doubt not, down to the pit, this way, that have sometimes been to appearance the very foremost and hopefulest in the place where they have lived. O how soon has their fire gone out and their lamps ceased to burn! How quickly have they lost their love to their ministers, by whom they were illuminated, and to the warmest Christians, through communion with whom they used to be kept awake and savoury! How quickly have they found them out new friends, new companions, new ways and methods of life, and new delights to feed their foolish minds withal! Wherefore, O you that are in this matter concerned, ‘Come boldly unto the throne of grace, to obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.’
6. Another time of need is, when the generality of professors are decayed; when the custom of fancies and fooleries have taken away all gravity and modesty from among the children of men.
Now pray, or you will die; yea, pray against those decays, those vain customs, those foolish fancies, those light and vain carriages that have overtaken others else they will assuredly knock at your door, and obtain favour at your hand, the which if they do, they will quickly bring you down into the dirt with others, and put you in peril of damnation as well as they.
7. Another time of need is, the time of guilt contracted, and of the hiding of God’s face.
This is a dangerous time. If you now forbear to pray, you are undone, for the natural tendency of guilt is to drive a man from God. So it served our first father; and oft-times when God hides his face, men run into desperation, and so throw up all duties, and say as he of old, ‘What should I wait for the Lord any longer?’ (2 Kings 6: 33). Now your great help against this is prayer, continuing in prayer. Prayer wrestles with the devil, and will overthrow him; prayer wrestles with God, and will overcome him: prayer wrestles with all temptations, and makes them fly. Great things have been done by prayer, even by the prayer of those that have contracted guilt, and that have by their sins lost the smiles and sense of the flavour of God. Wherefore, when this needy, this evil time has overtaken you, pray: ‘Come boldly unto the throne of grace, to obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.’
8. The day of reproach and slander is another time of need, or a day in which you will want supplies of grace.
Sometimes we meet with days wherein we are loaded with reproaches, slanders, scandals, and lies. Christ found the day of reproach a burdensome day unto him; and there is many a professor driven quite away from all conscience towards God, and open profession of his name, by such things as these (Ps. 69: 7). Reproach, when cast at a man, is as if he was being stoned to death with stones. Now ply it hard at the throne of grace, for mercy and grace to bear you up, or you will either miscarry or sink underground by the weight of reproach that may fall upon you.
9. Another time of need is that wherein a man’s friends desert and forsake him, because of his gospel principles, or of those temptations that attend his profession.
This is a time that often happens to those that are good. Thus it was with Christ, with Paul, with Job, with Heman, and so has it been with many other of God’s servants in the day of their temptations in this world; and a sore time it is. Job complained under it, so did Heman, Paul and Christ (John 6: 66; 2 Tim. 1: 15; Job 19: 13-19). Now a man is as forlorn as a pelican in the wilderness, as an owl in the desert, or as a sparrow upon the house-top. If a man cannot now go to the throne of grace by prayer, through Christ, and so fetch grace for his support from thence, what can he do? He cannot live of himself (John 15: 4). Wherefore this is a sore evil.
10. Another time of need is the day of death, when I am to pack up and to be gone from hence, the way of all the earth.
Now the greatest trial is come, excepting that of the day of judgment. Now a man is to be stripped of all but that which cannot be shaken. Now a man grows near the borders of eternity. Now he begins to see into the borders of the next world. Now death is death, and the grave the grave indeed! now he begins to see what it is for body and soul to part, and what to go and appear before God (Eccles. 12: 5). Now the dark entry, and the thoughts of what is in the way from a deathbed to the gate of the holy heaven, comes nearer the heart than when health and prosperity do compass a man about. Wherefore this is like to be a trying time, a time of need indeed. A prudent man will make it one of the great concerns of his whole life, to get and lay up a stock of grace for this day, though the fool will rage and be confident: for he knows all will be little enough to keep him warm in his soul, while cold death strokes his hand over his face, and over his heart, and is turning his blood into jelly: while strong death is loosing his silver cord, and breaking his golden bowl (Eccles. 12: 6). Wherefore, I say, this motive wears a spur on its heel, a spur to prick us on to the throne of grace for mercy, and grace to help in time of need.