Daily Visits To The Court Of Appeal

Robert Hawker | Added: Oct 16, 2025 | Category: Theology

Precious Lord Jesus! How opposed to all human courts of appeal is Thy throne of heavenly mercy? Interest, intrigue, and power, are too often the necessary qualifications to obtain the favour of men. But to be friendless, poor, and miserable, under the deepest sense of undeserving, become the truest recommendations with my God. It is a fruitless attempt for a poor stranger to go to an earthly court, or to seek the favour of some great man in office, without an introduction: but the most forlorn state of nature, needs no other recommendation to the heavenly court, than their sense of want: yea, the Lord is said to be nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and will save such as be of an humble spirit! The high and mighty of this world carry themselves proudly, towards those that are seeking any favours from them; and very often long silence, and a time of much suspense, go before their grants, even, when perhaps, from the first they intended them; but with the High and Lofty One, who inhabiteth eternity, and whose name is Holy, His gracious manner of receiving petitioners at His throne, is the reverse: He saith Himself: ‘it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear’ (Isaiah 65:24). Men cannot go before princes, and the great ones of the earth at all times; but for the most part when they are appointed, and the hours for receiving and answering suits are limited. But it is not so with Him, who is Prince of the Kings of the earth. Access to Him is forever. Jesus is always upon the throne, and His ear always open to the cries of His people. Yea, it is sweetly said of Him, that He waits to be gracious (Isaiah 30:18). And the way not only to His throne, but to His heart, like the gates of that blessed city, spoken of in scripture, stands everlastingly open, and is never shut, day or night (Revelation 21:25).

Such then being the vast superiority of an heavenly court, to an earthly: it should seem to require no higher recommendation, to induce every poor distressed creature to go there, than what ariseth out of a conscious sense of his own need, and the assured welcome he will find. One might expect to see the mercy seat of Jesus thronged with petitioners, and all hastening to a throne, whose very object is to give out mercy. And so it is, indeed, by every one who is brought acquainted with the plague of his own heart; and hath the smallest apprehensions of the immense compassions of Jesus. For the mercies there dispensing are in the daily, yea, the hourly necessities, both of saint and sinner. The child of God renewed by grace requires continually renewed acts of that grace: without which his best spiritual state doth soon languish. And hence the Lord, speaking of His church, under the similitude of a vineyard, saith ‘I will water it every moment’ (Isaiah 27:3). And well is it for His redeemed that He doth. For though our souls do not always feel the momentary need; neither are we conscious in ten thousand times, ten thousand instances of Christ’s watering; yet, were it not that our inward man is renewed day by day by the Lord, our body of sin meeting with the temptations of Satan, and the world at large, would make sad waste in the church of God!

It was not without an eye to this, in the constant necessities of God’s children, the Apostle prayed for the church, that grace, mercy, and peace might be multiplied (1 Peter 1:2, Jude 2). And certain it is, that grace which is the fountain of all mercies in God’s heart, is multiplied by the effect of it, in mercy and peace in ours. For as we multiply our offences, the acts of divine grace are multiplied in giving pardons. And while every truly regenerated child of God finds cause to be often looking back, and contemplating with holy joy that blest hour, when from God the Holy Ghost quickening him to a new life in Christ, he was forgiven all trespasses (Colossians 2:13), so doth he daily discover, in the circumstances of renewed errors in his walk of life, to be no less looking for the multiplications of grace in renewed pardons to renewed offences. Oh! How very precious in this view is the mercy seat of the Lord Jesus.

Reader! Have you duly considered these things? Hath the Lord the Spirit brought you into a daily acquaintance with the plague of your own heart? Hath He made you completely out of love with yourself, and all your own attainments? Yea, hath the Lord so fully done this as sometimes to make it appear to your view, as if there were growing imperfections in you? These are very humbling, but very profitable lessons of God’s teaching. It is by these, and in the higher department of Christ’s school, that the Lord teacheth His people to profit (Isaiah 48:16, 17; Ezekiel 16:63). Moreover, while the Holy Ghost is thus bringing down every high look, and emptying our souls from vessel to vessel, He is hereby preparing for the exalting of the Lord Jesus to our view, and for bringing Him home to fill our hearts, and to form Him there the hope of glory! Doth my reader enter into an apprehension of these things? Then will he apprehend also the blessedness of the mercy seat of the Lord Jesus; and the high privilege of going there. The Holy Ghost will have opened to his understanding, the sweetness, and graciousness of His own scripture.

‘Seeing that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are; yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need’ (Hebrews 4:11-16).

In whatever point of view we consider the mercy seat of the Lord Jesus Christ, in every way, and by every argument, it is endeared to our affection. The very name of it, a throne of grace; carries with it everything of blessedness. And as the first and great design for which it is appointed, is to open a constant communication between God and His church, through the mediation of Christ; so the Lord the Spirit, leading forth His people in these sendings of the heart in prayer, by which their requests are made known; and God the Father answering in mercy their petitions in the Son’s name most graciously show the divine harmony in the administration.

But what I would particularly keep in view, as one of the most endearing circumstances of the mercy seat, is the character of Him who presides there. The Holy Ghost in the most affectionate manner teacheth the church that it is Christ, in His Mediator office. And as if the Lord the Spirit would impress this point in the strongest possible manner on the minds of the people; He describes Him as ‘the Lamb in the midst of the throne’ (Revelation 7:17); thereby alluding to the glory of His personal nature as God-man: and to the dignity of His office, as the centre of all sovereignty and power. Both are sweet views, and when blended, become unitedly great and blessed. The infinite glories of His person, and the infinite merits of His blood and righteousness, are very properly set forth under the character of a throne, from whence everything of royalty comes forth. And the Lord Jesus being in the midst of it implies that it is accessible in every direction.

But amidst the numberless glories of Christ’s person, and the possession of all divine attributes which Christ hath to endear His mercy seat to all His people; there is one feature of character belonging to the Son of God in our nature, which comes home in such a warmth of affection to our tenderest feelings, as tends to make every other yet abundantly more blessed and gracious; namely, that His appointment to the office of our High Priest was, that from His own feelings, He might enter into the feelings of His people. It is this sweet feature of character that gives the finishing loveliness to the whole. And although the Son of God could not have been suited for the office of High Priest, had He not been God; (for all the divine perfections are necessary to furnish the never ending mercies He hath to impart) yet would not the divine nature alone, without being united to the human, have allowed that sympathy of heart which an High Priest required, that He might have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for that He Himself is compassed with infirmity. He must feel, as well as know, what are the exercises, and what will suit the cases of those He relieves. He must have a personal apprehension, what support that is which will give succour to the tempted. And hence, it is blessedly said of Jesus; ‘for in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted; He is able to succour them that are tempted’ (Hebrews 2:18).

On this account therefore, it becomes the most powerful encouragement to a child of God, under any depression of sorrow, heart straitenings, and infirmity of soul, to go to the mercy seat of Jesus, from the consideration that he is going to one of his own nature. That the Son of God knoweth what our frame is, by His own. That it was on this very account, He was made High Priest; neither could He have been a suitable High Priest without it. That neither was He sworn into this office for the greatness of His knowledge, or the mightiness of His power alone. These perfections were indeed essential to the office; neither could He have done without them. But these were not all. He was made High Priest, because He is man as well as God; and therefore the immense compassions of His heart, are suited to the immense necessities of His people. Very sweetly, and very blessedly, one of His servants was taught by the Holy Ghost to say all this, and much more to the church of Him, when He said, ‘Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him: for he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust’ (Psalm 103:13, 14).

And, is the mercy seat of Jesus so constituted? Is the Lord who presides there so qualified; so suited to the wants of His people; so gracious, that there needs no recommendation to His favour; so compassionate as to make all the cases of His people His own; and so tender as to enter, by a fellow-feeling, into all their concerns? Then, my soul, do thou constantly go; yea, invite all that know the plague of their own heart to go; and let us all go; for, very sure it is, all His redeemed must succeed; for, never will He send any empty away! But the poor and the needy shall give praise to His name.

Let my daily, hourly visits, to the mercy seat of my Lord, be always under these impressions: I go to receive, not to give: I go empty to be filled: and, like the beggar that goeth out of the morning to seek his daily alms, that literally hath nothing, so may God the Holy Ghost lead me, stripped of everything of my own, to the highway of ordinances, and to the mercy-seat of Jesus, to receive out of His fulness, and grace for grace.

And if my God will have, as that He must have, all the glory of His bounties, in bestowing them, not only without an eye to merit, in the receiver, but in direct opposition to all the sins, and unworthiness of His people; surely I am in every way suited for His princely clemency to get glory by me. Jesus shall have the whole praise, for He richly deserves it; and I am content to be nothing, yea, worse than nothing; so that the Lord my God becomes the more blessed to my view. And will He not be more blessed to my view, and come home ten thousand times more endeared to my heart, when, from that height of glory and power to which He is now exalted, He stoops down to inquire after, and to relieve all my sins and sorrows, as He once washed the feet of poor fishermen, at a time when He knew, that the Father had given all things into His hands? (John 13:3). Yes! Thou dear Lord, in all my visits to Thy throne, and all Thy visits to my soul; sure I am, Thou needest nothing from thy redeemed, to make the meeting blessed. The empty walls, and the broken hearts of sinners, are best suited for His residence, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. So then, when my heart is most depressed, and everything in myself, within, and without, and all around, are most discouraging, then, Lord, let me hear Thy voice, in that sweet scripture of Thine, which will raise my soul above all her sorrows. ‘Thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place: with him, also, that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones’ (Isaiah 57:15).

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