'Ask, and it shall be given you; ' Or, The Certainty of the Answer to
Prayer.
'Ask, and
it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it
shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh
receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh
it shall be opened,'--MATT. vii. 7, 8.
'Ye ask,
and receive not, because ye ask amiss.'--Jas. iv. 3.
OUR Lord returns here in
the Sermon on the Mount a second time to speak of prayer. The first time
He had spoken of the Father who is to be found in secret, and rewards openly,
and had given us the pattern prayer (Matt. vi. 5-15). Here He wants to
teach us what in all Scripture is considered the chief thing in prayer:
the assurance that prayer will be heard and answered. Observe how He
uses words which mean almost the same thing, and each time repeats the promise
so distinctly: 'Ye shall receive, ye shall find, it
shall be opened unto you;' and then gives as ground for such assurance
the law of the kingdom: 'He that asketh, receiveth; he that
seeketh, findeth; to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.'
We cannot but feel how in this sixfold repetition He wants to impress deep
on our minds this one truth, that we may and must most confidently expect an
answer to our prayer. Next to the revelation of the Father's love, there
is, in the whole course of the school of prayer, not a more important lesson
than this: Every one that asketh, receiveth.
In the
three words the Lord uses, ask, seek, knock, a difference in meaning has
been sought. If such was indeed His purpose, then the first, ASK, refers
to the gifts we pray for. But I may ask and receive the gift without the
Giver. SEEK is the word Scripture uses of God Himself; Christ assures me
that I can find Himself. But it is not enough to find God in time of need,
without coming to abiding fellowship: KNOCK speaks of admission to dwell
with Him and in Him. Asking and receiving the gift would thus lead to
seeking and finding the Giver, and this again to the knocking and opening of the
door of the Father's home and love. One thing is sure: the Lord does
want us to count most certainly on it that asking, seeking, knocking, cannot be
in vain: receiving an answer, finding God, the opened heart and home of
God, are the certain fruit of prayer.
That the
Lord should have thought it needful in so many forms to repeat the truth, is a
lesson of deep import. It proves that He knows our heart, how doubt and
distrust toward God are natural to us, and how easily we are inclined to rest in
prayer as a religious work without an answer. He knows too how, even when
we believe that God is the Hearer of prayer, believing prayer that lays hold of
the promise, is something spiritual, too high and difficult for the half-hearted
disciple. He therefore at the very outset of His instruction to those who
would learn to pray, seeks to lodge this truth deep into their hearts:
prayer does avail much; ask and ye shall receive; every one
that asketh, receiveth. This is the fixed eternal law of the kingdom:
if you ask and receive not, it must be because there is something amiss or
wanting in the prayer. Hold on; let the Word and the Spirit teach you to
pray aright, but do not let go the confidence He seeks to waken: Every one
that asketh, receiveth.
'Ask, and it shall be given you.'
Christ has no mightier stimulus to persevering prayer in His school than
this. As a child has to prove a sum to be correct, so the proof that we
have prayed aright is, the answer. If we ask and receive not, it is
because we have not learned to pray aright. Let every learner in the
school of Christ therefore take the Master's word in all simplicity: Every
one that asketh, receiveth. He had good reasons for speaking so
unconditionally. Let us beware of weakening the Word with our human
wisdom. When He tells us heavenly things, let us believe Him: His
Word will explain itself to him who believes it fully. If questions and
difficulties arise, let us not seek to have them settled before we accept the
Word. No; let us entrust them all to Him: it is His to solve them:
our work is first and fully to accept and hold fast His promise. Let
in our inner chamber, in the inner chamber of our heart too, the Word be
inscribed in letters of light: Every one that asketh,
receiveth.
According to this teaching of the Master, prayer
consists of two parts, has two sides, a human and a Divine. The human is
the asking, the Divine is the giving. Or, to look at both from the human
side, there is the asking and the receiving--the two halves that make up a
whole. It is as if He would tell us that we are not to rest without an
answer, because it is the will of God, the rule in the Father's family:
every childlike believing petition is granted. If no answer comes,
we are not to sit down in the sloth that calls itself resignation, and suppose
that it is not God's will to give an answer. No; there must be something
in the prayer that is not as God would have it, childlike and believing; we must
seek for grace to pray so that the answer may come. It is far easier to
the flesh to submit without the answer than to yield itself to be searched and
purified by the Spirit, until it has learnt to pray the prayer of
faith.
It is one of the terrible marks of the diseased state
of Christian life in these days, that there are so many who rest content without
the distinct experience of answer to prayer. They pray daily, they ask
many things, and trust that some of them will be heard, but know little of
direct definite answer to prayer as the rule of daily life. And it is this
the Father wills: He seeks daily intercourse with His children in
listening to and granting their petitions. he wills that I should come to
Him day by day with distinct requests; He wills day by day to do for me what I
ask. It was in His answer to prayer that the saints of old learned to know
God as the Living One, and were stirred to praise and love (Ps. xxxiv., lxvi.
19, cxvi. 1). Our Teacher waits to imprint this upon our minds:
prayer and its answer, the child asking and the father giving, belong to
each other.
There may be cases in which the answer is a refusal,
because the request is not according to God's Word, as when Moses asked to enter
Canaan. But still, there was an answer: God did not leave His
servant in uncertainty as to His will. The gods of the heathen are dumb
and cannot speak. Our Father lets His child know when He cannot give him
what he asks, and he withdraws his petition, even as the Son did in Gethsemane.
Both Moses the servant and Christ the Son knew that what they asked was
not according to what the Lord had spoken: their prayer was the humble
supplication whether it was not possible for the decision to be changed.
God will teach those who are teachable and give Him time, by His Word and
Spirit, whether their request be according to His will or not. Let us
withdraw the request, if it be not according to God's mind, or persevere till
the answer come. Prayer is appointed to obtain the answer. It is in
prayer and its answer that the interchange of love between the Father and His
child takes place.
How deep the estrangement of our heart from God must
be, that we find it so difficult to grasp such promises. Even while we
accept the words and believe their truth, the faith of the heart, that fully has
them and rejoices in them, comes so slowly. It is because our spiritual
life is still so weak, and the capacity for taking God's thoughts is so feeble.
But let us look to Jesus to teach us as none but He can teach. If we
take His words in simplicity, and trust Him by His Spirit to make them within us
life and power, they will so enter into our inner being, that the spiritual
Divine reality of the truth they contain will indeed take possession of us, and
we shall not rest content until every petition we offer is borne heavenward on
Jesus' own words: 'Ask, and it shall be given you.'
Beloved
fellow-disciples in the school of Jesus! let us set ourselves to learn
this lesson well. Let us take these words just as they were spoken.
Let us not suffer human reason to weaken their force. Let us take
them as Jesus gives them, and believe them. He will teach us in due time
how to understand them fully: let us begin by implicitly believing them.
Let us take time, as often as we pray, to listen to His voice: Every
one that asketh, receiveth. Let us not make the feeble experiences of our
unbelief the measure of what our faith may expect. Let us seek, not only
just in our seasons of prayer, but at all times, to hold fast the joyful
assurance: man's prayer on earth and God's answer in heaven are meant for
each other. Let us trust Jesus to teach us so to pray that the answer can
come. He will do it, if we hold fast the word He gives today: 'Ask,
and ye shall receive.'
'LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY.'
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O Lord Jesus! teach me to
understand and believe what Thou hast now promised me. It is not hid from
Thee, O my Lord, with what reasonings my heart seeks to satisfy itself, when no
answer comes. There is the thought that my prayer is not in harmony with
the Father's secret counsel; that there is perhaps something better Thou
wouldest give me; or that prayer as fellowship with God is blessing enough
without an answer. And yet, my blessed Lord, I find in Thy teaching on
prayer that Thou didst not speak of these things, but didst say so plainly, that
prayer may and must expect an answer. Thou dost assure us that this is the
fellowship of a child with the Father: the child asks and the Father
gives.
Blessed Lord! Thy words are faithful and true.
It must be, because I pray amiss, that my experience of answered prayer is
not clearer. It must be, because I live too little in the Spirit, that my
prayer is too little in the Spirit, and that the power for the prayer of faith
is wanting.
Lord! teach me to pray. Lord Jesus! I
trust Thee for it; teach me to pray in faith. Lord! teach me this
lesson of today: Every one that asketh receiveth. Amen.