Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1091
“And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asks receives and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened.” Luke 11:9-10.
To seek aid in time of distress from a supernatural being is an instinct of human nature. We say not that human nature unrenewed ever offers truly spiritual prayer, or ever exercises saving faith in the living God. But still, like a child crying in the dark with painful longing for help from somewhere or other, it scarcely knows where, the soul in deep sorrow almost invariably cries to some supernatural being for succor. None have been more ready to pray in time of trouble than those who have ridiculed prayer in their prosperity—and probably no prayers have been more true to the feelings of the hour than those which atheists have offered under the pressure of the fear of death.
In one of his papers in the Tattler, Addison describes a man, who, on board ship, loudly boasted of his atheism. A brisk gale springing up, he fell upon his knees and confessed to the chaplain that he had been an atheist. The common seamen who had never heard the word before, thought it had been some strange fish, but were more surprised when they saw it was a man and learned out of his own mouth, “that he never believed till that day that there was a God.” One of the old sailors whispered to the boatswain that it would be a good deed to heave him overboard, but this was a cruel suggestion, for the poor creature was already in misery enough—his atheism had evaporated and he, in mortal terror, cried to God to have mercy upon him!
Similar incidents have occurred, not once nor twice. Indeed, so frequently does boastful skepticism come down with a run at the last that we always expect it to do so. Take away unnatural restraint from the mind and it may be said of all men that, like the comrades of Jonah, they cry, every man, unto his God in their trouble. As birds to their nests, hinds to their coverts, so men in agony fly to a superior being for succor in the hour of need. God has given to all the creatures He has made some peculiar form of strength—one has such swiftness of foot that at the baying of a hound it escapes from danger by outstripping the wind. Another, with outspread wings, is lifted beyond the fowler. A third, with horns, pushes down its enemy and a fourth, with tooth and claw, tears in pieces its adversary.
To man He gave but little strength compared with the animals among which He placed in Eden and yet man was king over all because the Lord was His strength. So long as he knew where to look for the source of his power, man remained the unresisted monarch of all around him. That image of God in which he shone resplendent sustained his sovereignty over the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field and the fish of the sea. By instinct man turned to his God in Paradise and now, though he is, to a sad degree, an uncrowned monarch, there lingers in his memory shadows of what he was and remembrances of where his strength must still be found. Therefore, no matter where you find a man, you meet one who, in his distress, will ask for supernatural help.
I believe in the truthfulness of this instinct and that man prays because there is something in prayer. And when the Creator gives His creature the power of thirst, it is because water exists to meet its thirst—and as when He creates hunger there is food to correspond to the appetite. So when He inclines men to pray it is because prayer has a corresponding blessing connected with it. We find a powerful reason for expecting prayer to be effectual in the fact that it is an institution of God. In God’s Word we are over and over again commanded to pray. God’s institutions are not folly. Can I believe that the infinitely wise God has ordained for me an exercise which is ineffectual and is no more than child’s play?
Does He bid me pray and yet has prayer no more result than if I whistled to the wind, or sang to a grove of trees? If there is no answer to prayer, prayer is a monstrous absurdity and God is the Author of it—which it is blasphemy to assert! No man who is not a fool will continue to pray when you have once proved to him that prayer has no effect with God and never receives an answer. Prayer is a work for idiots and madmen, and not for sane persons, if it is, indeed, true, that its effects end with the man who prays! I shall not, this morning, enter into any arguments upon the matter—rather, I am coming to my text, which to me, at least, and to you who are followers of Christ, is the end of all controversy.
Our Savior knew right well that many difficulties would arise in connection with prayer which might tend to stagger His disciples and therefore He has balanced every opposition by an overwhelming assurance. Read those words, “I say unto you,” I—your Teacher, your Master, your Lord, your Savior, your God—“I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” In the text our Lord meets all difficulties—first by giving us the weight of His own authority, “I say unto you.” Next by presenting us with a promise, “Ask, and it shall be given you,” and so on. And then by reminding us of an indisputable fact—“everyone that asks receives.” Here are three mortal wounds for a Christian’s doubts as to prayer.