Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 959
Delivered on Lords-Day Morning, November 6, 1870
“If a son shall ask for bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” Luke 11:11-13.
IN this chapter there is an evident progress. It opens by the disciples asking the Lord to teach them to pray. To that He gave a full and sufficient reply. He prepared them an outline of what complete prayer should be. Brethren, we have need, some of us, to begin with asking to be taught to pray. It will be a blessed sign when it can be said of us, “Behold, he prays.” And just in proportion as we are instructed how to pray shall we give evidence of a more advanced Christian life. He has most grown in Grace who prays best. Depend upon it, the most acceptable prayer with God is the evidence of a most accepted state of heart within.
Our growth in prayer may be to us the test of our growth in all other respects. “Lord, teach us to pray,” is a prayer for the young beginner and for the more advanced disciple. It is a suitable petition for as all, for we have none of us yet learned to the full the sacred art of supplication. Then the chapter proceeds a little further to answer a question—we are shown how to pray, but will God really answer us? Is prayer only meant to do good to the suppliant? Does it end with the benefit which it works in us, or does it really affect the heart of God? Do replies actually come from Heaven in answer to the entreaties of God’s children?
The answer is given by our Lord with great clearness. We have a parable to show that as importunity does evidently affect men, so importunity will also gain an answer from God—that He will be pleased to give us what we need if we do but know how, with incessant earnestness, to come again and again to Him in prayer. We are assured that asking is attended with receiving, that seeking is attended with finding, that knocking will lead to opening. That it is not a vain thing to pray, that our prayers are not lost on the wind, or expended merely on ourselves—but that there is a connection established by Divine decree between the prayer that is raised on earth and the mercy that is given forth from Heaven.
But since we are such sinful creatures, the chapter proceeds to deal with a grave doubt which may arise in the troubled mind. “It may be God will hear, and as a general rule will make replies in mercy. But I am an undeserving one. If the Lord should be incensed at my prayers and answer me in wrath instead of love, I should deserve it. If after having made my confession, He should deal with me, judging me out of my own mouth, and then and there condemn me, what should I
say?”
The Savior very explicitly answers the question as to whether God will give answers of peace, and will always grant us good things. And He puts it thus to us—when your children ask for good things you grant their requests. You do not mock them by giving them something that may look like what they asked for, but is only a deception. You never play upon their ignorance and mock their childish confidence by giving them the injurious semblance of what would have been a useful reality. When their prayers are right, you answer them.
If you, then, being evil, fallen creatures, yet answer your children’s right and proper prayers, how much more will your heavenly Father answer your fitting prayers, and give to you good things? He will not put you off with evil things when you ask for good, but He will grant you in Truth the good gifts which you are seeking after.
You will observe that the fear, lest God should give us something evil when we are seeking something good, is very naturally raised in the heart by a sense of sinfulness. And is increased by the conviction that we should not always be able to judge whether the thing received is good or not good. We tremble lest we should receive from the Divine hands what appears to be gracious, and yet may be sent in judgment. But he says, “No, your children trust in their father, and their
father never deceives them—you may safely trust your heavenly Father that when you ask a good thing from Him, He will most assuredly give you a good thing, and not an evil thing in lieu of it.”
You are true and kind to your children—much more shall God be good towards you. In saying, “How much more?” we ask an unanswerable question. As high as God is above us, so high is the certainty that He will give us good above the certainty that we will give good things to our children. Yet since we feel in our hearts quite certain that we could not mock our children, let us be quite convinced that it is still further beyond all question that God will ever mock us and give to us an evil thing when we are seeking a good thing at His hands.