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The sermon presents prayer as a commanded and ongoing practice of the church: believers are to continue, watch, and give thanks. Spurgeon strongly affirms both divine sovereignty and effective human prayer, portraying Spirit-inspired petitions as consistent with God’s eternal counsel. Prayer is also spiritual warfare and a means through which God advances the salvation of souls. The sermon closes with an evangelistic invitation for sinners to seek the Lord and trust Jesus Christ.
Theological center: Faithful, Spirit-inspired prayer is ordained by God, aligned with His eternal decrees, and answered according to His promises.
Applications: Continue in prayer · Watch while praying · Expect answers to prayer · Join prayer with thanksgiving
Primary texts: Colossians 4:2 · Isaiah 55:6
“Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving.” Colossians 4:2 THOSE of you who constantly listen to my voice are aware that on the first Sabbath of the year I always receive of a venerable Clergyman, a veteran warrior in the Lord’s hosts, a verse of Scripture which I accept as my New Year’s text, and which after being printed becomes the motto of my congregation for the following year. It is somewhat singular that my venerable friend should have sent me in the envelope about a month ago this text. He knew nothing of the proposition for a week of prayer. I do not know that it had been even determined upon at that date, certainly neither to his knowledge nor to mine, and I could not but help thinking when I opened my envelope, and saw what was to be my text, that he had been directly and specially guided of God, that my text might be in keeping with the engagements of the week. “Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving.” How greatly do I rejoice that the churches are awakened to prayer. My honored and venerable brother will this morning stand up in his village church, lift up holy hands, and bid his people join in the common supplication, and I feel but too happy as his younger brother in Christ—as but a babe compared to so experienced a pastor—to follow his example in stirring you up that you too as a great host may join with the general company of the faithful, and besiege the throne of grace till you carry the gates of heaven by storm, and obtain the mercy which both you and the world so much require. Without further preface, let me observe that there are three exhortations in the text connected with prayer. The first is continue, the second is watch, and the third is give thanks. “Continuance” sits like Moses on the top of the hill, while Watching and Thanksgiving, like Aaron and Hur, hold up its hands. I. And first, in regard to prayer, the apostle says, “CONTINUE.” Be you not, O you intercessors with God for men—be you not as those whose goodness is as the morning cloud and as the early dew. Do not begin to pray and then suddenly cease your supplications. That will prove an ignorance as to the value of the mercy which you seek and a lack of earnestness as to your obtaining it. How many there are who, under a powerful sermon or during a trying providence, have bent their knees suddenly in hasty prayer! They have risen from their knees and they have forgotten what manner of men they were. Take away the whip from them and they have ceased to run. Remove from them the tempest and they have ceased to fly before it. They…