ASK AND RECEIVE
‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.’
Three thoughts, similar, yet distinct, rolled up together here, make one precept and one promise. To ‘ask,’ is a single, suppliant action: to ‘seek,’ is a continuous patient action: to ‘knock,’ is an earnest, importunate action. The three must not be divided. It is not three repetitions of the same thing. God often repeats His will; but the more you look into it, the more you will see there is no tautology—i.e. there is no saying the same thing over again in God’s Word.
It will be well to define, a little, the general encouragement which the text holds out to prayer. Now observe three points concerning this whole passage.
I. Every promise is attached to a duty—for God never separates promises from duty. It is true the blessing immeasurably outranges the means used for its attainment, so that there is no proportion between the machinery and the result—still the machinery must be planted before the result can be looked for—i.e. we must really ‘ask,’ really ‘seek,’ really ‘knock,’ before we can expect anything—for in the very command, ‘Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you’—the negative is involved,—‘If you do not ask, you shall not receive; if you do not seek, you shall not find; if you do not knock, it shall not be opened unto you.’ Therefore, be careful that the application—before you allow any expectation to go forth—is real prayer—‘asking,’ ‘seeking,’ ‘knocking.’
II. Concerning any duty, you must do it scripturally.—We cannot conceive of a promise without a condition. The condition may be expressed, or the condition may be understood; but it is evident that every promise has a condition. If you wish to arrive at the true meaning of any passage of Scripture, you must put together the different parts of the Bible which bear upon the same subject; and then, from the whole collectively, you will arrive at the true meaning of the original verse. It is God’s revealed will, to make over to every one of His redeemed people, all that He has covenanted to Christ in His word. Therefore the promises of the Bible are the field through which faith is to travel. If a prayer wanders outside the promise, it has forfeited its title to be heard; but, so long as it is within the promise, it may command God. Therefore it is not only necessary that we ‘ask,’ ‘seek,’ and ‘knock,’ but that we ‘ask,’ ‘seek,’ and ‘knock,’ in proportion to the promise—i.e. that the boon which we ‘ask,’ is a boon covenanted; that the treasure we ‘seek,’ is a treasure revealed; and that the door we ‘knock’ at, is the door appointed.
III. The promise lies at an indefinite future.—God says, ‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you’; but, in no instance, does He say when. He has pledged Himself to His children what shall be given them; but He has reserved to Himself the when, and the how; and God’s futures may seem long to the weary mind of man; nevertheless God’s futures are all sure. You may have been praying, all your life long, for a promised favour—you may be within five minutes of your death: you must expect it still. God will do it yet.
—The Rev. James Vaughan.
Illustration
‘Another encouraging thing in connection with the work of the Universities Mission to Central Africa is the reconversion of the Nyasas. Years ago, the first event in this district was the bringing a great number of freed slaves from Zanzibar to form a village. At first they settled near Masasi, they migrated to Newala, and gradually they fell away terribly, and many became just like heathen again; but for the last few years they have, one by one, been coming back to their religion, saying that they want to be true Christians, and not only saying it, but actually giving up their bad ways. There has been no visible reason for this, but we believe it is a direct answer to the prayers of one man especially who, when he knew of any trouble such as this, made a note of the people’s names and prayed continually for them.’