When the Lord calls us an abomination
before Him, that's what He's talking about. It means a sulphurous
stench. That's what a sinner is outside
of Christ before God. So that's not a far-fetched illustration
at all. That's what we are. Let's look
in Luke 11. The songs go right along with
our text. I was just marveling as we sang
those how well they fit with the text
tonight. The disciples asked the Lord
Jesus to teach them to pray. And in verses 1 through 4, the
Lord teaches us what to pray. Now the Lord didn't teach us
to pray using just these words. This was an example of an outline
of that which we are to pray for. And notice here, Christ
gives three specific things. Three specific things which only
God can give, which we must ask of God. This is what we need.
This is what we need. First of all, in verse 3, He
said, Give us day by day our daily bread. First and foremost,
this is Christ the bread. This is Christ our life. Christ
our spiritual bread. Christ said, seek ye first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness. And these other things will be
added to you. The temporal bread will be provided. But seek ye first Christ. Seek
the spiritual bread first. He just got through up there
in Matthew 10 in verse 42. He just said, one thing is needful. One thing. Mary sat at Christ's
feet and he said, this is the one thing needful, Christ himself.
Mary hath chosen that good part, he said, which shall not be taken
away from her. Everything else, temporally speaking,
will be taken from us one day, but not Christ. Christ is that
bread, He's that life. So once our new man's created
by the power of God, by His power, through the blood and righteousness
of Christ, Scripture says our new man is renewed day by day. day by day, renewed day by day
in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. We need to be fed
Christ, our living bread, day by day. Then the second thing
he says here is, and forgive us our sins. Verse 4, he says,
and forgive us our sins. That's what we need. But more
than any temporal thing, sinners need forgiveness of sins. And the only place we can have
forgiveness of sins is in Christ who is our propitiation, our
mercy seat, our advocate with the Father. Now believers have
been forgiven our sins, but God will have us to ask Him continually
to forgive us our sins. We need to be continually cleansed
of our sins. And in 1 John he said, if we
confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We have to ask God for this.
He's the only one that can do it. And then the third thing
he says, verse 4, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver
us from evil. This is also found in Christ. He's our shepherd. We need Christ
to lead us. Because the way of man is not
in himself, it's not in man that walketh to direct his steps. He said in James, if any man's
tempted, let him not say he's tempted of God, because God's
not tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man with evil,
but a man's tempted when he's led away of his own lust. What
are we praying for God to, when you say lead us not into temptation,
what are we praying for our shepherd to save us from? When we say
save us from the evil, it's from our flesh first and foremost.
Because the way is not in man to direct his own step. We need
Christ our shepherd. So here you have our Savior telling
us to pray for number one, for Christ our bread. Number two,
for Christ our propitiation, for forgiveness of sins. And
number three, for Christ our shepherd, we need to be led and
delivered constantly. Now this is that good part. This
is what Mary had. This is what she chose. What
should not be taken away from any believer. This is what we
need. And so, that's what he says to
pray for. Now our divisions for our text
tonight are going to be found down in verse 9. And this really
is the main point of the whole passage here. And the whole message.
Look at verse 9. Christ said, I say unto you,
ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock
and it shall be opened unto you. We're going to use those three
words as our divisions. We're going to begin with seek.
He says seek and you'll find. And then we're going to go to
ask. Ask and it shall be given you. And knock and it shall be
opened unto you. And on this point of knocking,
We'll see that there's a very, very, very important point right
here in this. So pay close attention. I've
titled this, Seek, Ask, Knock. Alright, first of all he says,
Seek and you shall find. Now look at verse 5. The Lord
gives a parable to illustrate how we are to pray. To illustrate
how we are to pray. Now he says here, verse 5, And
he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend and shall
go unto him at midnight. Now, this man had a need and
he had a friend. And so he went seeking his friend
for help. He sought his friend. Do you
have a need? Do you have a friend? Do you
have a friend that can fulfill that need? That can supply that
need? That's the question here. Which
of you shall have a friend and go unto him at midnight? God
our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ is a friend to needy,
helpless, bankrupt, importunate sinners. We just sang it. He's
a friend of sinners. The Pharisees meant it as evil.
But what they said is true. They said of the Lord Jesus Christ
that He's a friend of publicans and sinners. And that's true.
He hates sin. Christ hates sin. He does not
approve of our sin. But all those that God elected
unto salvation before the foundation of the world in Christ Jesus,
Christ is a friend to them. He's a friend to publicans and
sinners, to true, needy, broken, and contrite sinners. Proverbs
18.24 says, A man that hath friends must show himself friendly. And
there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. That friend
is Christ. He has many friends. All the
elect of God given to Him before the world began. And He shows
Himself friendly to those in need, in true need. Christ said
of Lazarus, He says, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth. Scripture says
of Abraham, Abraham believed God and it was imputed unto him
for righteousness and he was called the friend of God. What kind of friend is God our
Savior? What kind of friend is He to
needy sinners? Well, Proverbs 17, 17 says, A
friend loveth at all times. A friend loveth at all times. What time was it here that in
this parable that this man needed his friend? It was at midnight. At midnight. If you take a Strong's
Concordance and you look up the word midnight, you're going to
find over and over and over again that our Lord He did great, great
miracles that pictured his salvation by his free and sovereign grace
in Christ at midnight. Over and over and over you'll
find in Scripture it says it was midnight. From when he delivered
the children of Israel out of Egypt to whenever Paul and Silas
were in prison at Philippi, that was at midnight that an earthquake
came. It's over and over and over again.
And every reference to midnight in the Word of God, every reference
to midnight in the Word of God is connected with an event that
clearly pictures God's salvation by His grace in Christ. So it's
not an accident that the Lord Jesus Christ says here in this
parable, in this illustration, in this earthly story given to
illustrate heavenly things, it's not by accident that he says
this man came to his friend at midnight. Whatever the Lord makes
us to see that we have a need, a need that we can't fill, a
need that only God can supply and that He only supplies in
the Lord Jesus Christ, it's midnight in our soul. And midnight signifies
darkness, it signifies urgency, it signifies great need is what
it signifies. He reveals to us our true need
that we need Christ our bread. He reveals our true need that
we need Christ our propitiation for forgiveness of sins. That
we need Christ our shepherd to lead us and guide us because
we can't direct our own steps. A friend loveth at all times. And Christ Jesus is that friend
that loves his children in the midnight, when it's midnight
in our souls, when there's an urgent need and there's a desperate
need and we need Him and Him alone. So first of all, the man
in this parable, he has a friend and he seeks that friend. He
has a need, it's midnight, it's urgent, he has a necessity and
he goes to his friend at midnight. And the Lord tells us now that
if you seek, you shall find. Now understand this. The Lord
Jesus Christ tells us over and over throughout the Scriptures,
without faith, it is impossible to please God. Without faith,
it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God must
believe. He must believe. Number one,
he must believe that he is. And number two, he must believe
that God is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. That
means just what Christ said. We believe that if we seek Him,
we'll find. We'll find. God will give us
Him when we seek Him. If you know you need and you
believe that God is a friend to the needy, then our Savior
says to us, Seek and you shall find. Seek and you shall find. Alright? Secondly, our Savior
says, Ask and it shall be given to you. Now, look at verse 5. Not only did the man in the parable
seek his friend at midnight, now look, he asked him for something. Verse 5. And he says unto him,
Friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine in his journey
has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him. Prayer is
not demanding. Prayer is asking. Prayer is not
coming to God and demanding something of God. Prayer is coming to God
and asking God for something. Asking Him. God will have us
to ask Him because in doing so, we confess our desperate need
and our inability. Now, this man needed his friend
to lend him three loaves. And it was because another had
come to him and he had nothing to set before him. We need three
vital loaves. Our Savior just told us what
they are in that when He told us what to pray for. The first
loaf is this. We need for Him to give us this
day our daily bread. Now, you take a sinner, he's
dead and trespasses and sins. And when the Holy Spirit gives
the sinner ears to hear what the law says, and we hear the
law of God speak to us, Then, for the first time, that law
is like a friend who came to us in his journey and we didn't
have anything to give to him. We don't have anything to give
to the law because the law demands of us, it demands what we do
not have to set before it. It demands perfect righteousness
from a holy heart. That's what it demands. And we
can't do that. There is no way we can give God
a perfect obedient righteousness from a holy heart. Not you and
not me. We must have Christ who is the
righteousness of His people because what Christ did was He came into
this earth and He fulfilled the law by His obedience unto the
death of the cross. So He is the righteousness of
His people. We have to have Christ our living
bread, our righteousness. And Christ is made unto us sanctification. When He's made sanctification,
Christ enters into the heart. He becomes the holiness without
which no man shall see the Lord. And we have to have Christ, our
holiness. We must have Him formed in our
hearts. We must have Christ's righteousness. And so, when God makes us to
see this, it's midnight. It's urgent. It's needful. We've
got to have Christ our righteousness. We've got to have Christ our
sanctification. And we come begging God for Christ. Ask, Christ said, and you'll
receive. And then, the second loaf is
forgiveness of our sins. When the Holy Spirit makes us
to know our sins, we behold that we have no way of putting away
our sins. We have no way of obtaining forgiveness
with God by any merit that's in us. None whatsoever. How are
we going to have our sin put away? You know why Christ came
into the world? Hebrews 9 tells us, in the end
of the world, He appeared to put away sin. Either Christ succeeded
or He failed. One of the two. If we say, Yeah,
but it's up to you to help him. That means we're saying Christ
failed. Christ did not fail. Christ came to put away sin. And that's exactly what he did.
And he put sin away for somebody. And God brings a sinner to cry
out and see he needs his sin put away. He needs forgiveness
of sin. He does that to those that Christ
has already put our sins away. But He draws us and brings us
to ask God to put our sins away. Because the only way to come
to God is through our advocate, the Lord Jesus Christ. I think
I gave you this illustration a long time ago, but I had a
friend down in Tennessee. We called him Jay Bird. He was
the oldest member in the congregation. Jay Bird was around 70-something.
And he worked at a little family-owned little convenience store. One
day they sent, I guess, I don't know who did it. I don't know
if the law sent somebody in there to do this or if this kid just
came in on his own. But he came in and the boy looked
like he was of age. And he came in and he bought
a six pack of beer and Jay was working the counter and Jay rung
him up. And then later the police came
in and they told Jay this boy was underage. And so he was going
to have to go to court. Well, a lawyer came in. That's
an advocate. And he came in and he told, Jay
was telling him the story. And this lawyer said, I'll represent
you in court. And Jay said, I don't really
have the money to pay for that. He said, don't worry about it.
I'll represent you in court. He knew Jay. Jay wasn't intentionally
breaking the law. And this man said, I'll represent
you. Well, Jay goes to court. And
he gets in court. And while he's sitting there
in court, He watches the first case come up. The judge calls
the first person to the bench. The first person walks up. He
doesn't have a lawyer. He's going to represent himself.
And he goes to start trying to talk to the judge. And the judge
just put the hammer down on him. The judge said, you don't need
to come in here and try to speak to me without somebody to represent
you. He said, you don't speak the
law. You don't know the law. You don't
speak my language. And so he just threw the book at him. And the
next one came up and the same thing happened. And the next
one came up and the same thing happened. And Jay's sitting there
and it's getting closer and closer to him and he's looking around
and he don't see that guy. And all of a sudden the judge
calls Jay's name. And when he called out his name,
Jay was just on the edge of his seat about to stand up. And sitting
right up in front of him there, where Jay didn't see him, was
that lawyer. And that lawyer stood up between Jay and the
judge. And he said, I represent him. I'm speaking on his behalf. And
the judge called him up to the bench and they spoke and Jay
kept his mouth shut. He didn't say a word. Not a word. Look here in 1 John. Look at
1 John chapter 2. This is what this is teaching
us for every believer. Now listen to this. 1 John chapter
2. My little children, these things
write unto you that you sin not. And if any man sin, we have an
advocate, an advocate. with the Father, Jesus Christ
the Righteous. He stands between God and His
people. He stands between God and the
believer. Christ does. And He is the propitiation
for our sins. He's the mercy seat. He's the
place where atonement has been made so that God doesn't deal
with His people in judgment. He deals with His Son. And we
just keep our mouth shut. Now, He's going to draw us to
ask Him for forgiveness. And this forgiveness is in Christ,
our perpetuation. This is the second loaf. Here's
the third loaf. This is another thing Christ
told us to ask for. Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. When the Holy Spirit comes to
us like the friend in the parable, He makes us to know that our
flesh profits us nothing. Our wisdom profits us nothing.
Our strength profits us nothing. There's nothing good in us that'll
save us or help us as we go through this life trying to believe God
and walk faithfully before Him. What do we have to have? We need
to have Christ. We need to have Christ our shepherd
to lead us and to direct us, to hold us and to keep us and
to preserve us. This is what we're asking God
for. We come to Him and we plead for God to do this for us because
our flesh is utterly useless. Now, when we confess that we
need Christ our living bread, and when we confess we ask God
for Christ to forgive us, that in Christ He forgive us of our
sins, and we ask God to have Christ our shepherd to lead us
and to deliver us, in every bit of this, we're confessing our
sins. We're confessing our need to
God. We're confessing our inability before God. You'll never seek
God for these three lows till you know that you don't have
any goodness in you. You can't justify yourself. You can't present yourself before
God and put away your sins. And you can't lead and deliver
yourself. We need Christ to do it. When
He reveals this and it's midnight in our soul, then we'll go to
God and we'll plead these things in Christ's name and seek Him. Ask, Christ says, and it shall
be given unto you. Alright? But somebody might object
and they say, but I've asked God and God has not given to
me. This is the third thing our Lord
said. This is very important. I want you to listen closely
to this. Thirdly, the Lord said, knock and it shall be opened
unto you. Now, I want you to get the meaning
here. Knocking signifies a broken heart. It signifies a shameful
desperation. It signifies The man that keeps
knocking, that keeps knocking, that isn't turned away is the
man who needs. He needs. He can't be turned
away because his need is desperate. His need is shameful. He can't
be turned away. Alright, now watch this. Pay
close attention to this. First of all, the man in the
parable petitioned his friend based upon their friendship.
Look at verse 5. He said, Lend me three loaves. Friend, lend me three loaves.
Christ says in verse 7, look at verse 7, And he from within
shall answer and say, Trouble be not, the door is now shut,
and my children are with me in bed, I cannot rise and give thee.
Christ says in verse 8, I say unto you, He will not rise and
give him because he is his friend. That has a double meaning there.
He won't do it simply based on friendship. He won't do it simply
because he's his friend. And the second meaning of that
is God won't do that for a sinner because he's the friend of the
sinner. That sinner, he's drawn. He won't
do that. If you come petitioning God to
help you based on friendship, He won't help you because in
not helping you is being a friend, is being a real friend. But again,
now look at this, the man knocked. He didn't go away, he knocked.
But this time, he petitioned him based upon his total inability,
on his great need, which only his friend could supply. Look
at verse 6. This is what he said, For a friend
of mine in his journey is come to meet, and I have nothing to
set before him. You see, now he's said something
else besides just do this because I'm your friend. He says, I'm
in need. A friend has come to me and I
have nothing to set before him. Christ says, verse 8, look at
verse 8, I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him
because he is his friend, yet because of his opportunity, he
will rise and give him as many as he needeth. This is so of
us. If Eric came to my door at midnight
tonight and he said, Clay, I need some bread because you're my
friend. I thought I'd come to you and
you'd give it to me. I'd say, well, go back. Come back at a
decent hour. Come back in the morning. But
if he came to me and he said, I've got a house full of guests
over here and I don't have any way of feeding them, would you
please open up and give me some bread? Then I'd opened up. There's
a reason now. There's an opportunity there.
Though God our Savior is a friend to sinners, God will not answer
any sinner if we come to God imagining we're equal and not
confessing our total inability to God. This is what God means
in James 4. One of the meanings in James
4 when he said, you ask and receive not because you ask amiss that
you may consume it upon your lust. Meaning vocally, vocally
with the lips they ask God for Christ to bread. They ask Him
for Christ the bread. Give us our daily bread. Give
us Christ. But in their hearts, they truly
think they're righteous and holy apart from Christ by their vain
works. And they ask Him yes. They ask
Him to consume it upon their lust. That word, consume it upon
your lust means upon your pleasure. want men to see you as claiming
to believe on Christ when in reality your pleasure is they
imagine they just need Christ to help them out a little bit.
And then many ask for forgiveness of sin in Christ with their lips.
But in their hearts they truly imagine they don't need forgiveness.
They truly imagine that they don't need Christ who alone is
the propitiation of mercy for his people. If we say that we
have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in
us, the Scripture says. And then many ask with their
lips for Christ to lead and to deliver, but in their heart they
look into their own strength and to their own wisdom to lead
and to deliver them. Look at James chapter 1. Look
at verse 5. You can't expect to receive anything
from God except you come confessing you have no righteousness. You
cannot produce a righteousness. You cannot expect anything from
God except you come confessing you need forgiveness of sins.
You can't put away your sins. You can't expect to be accepted
of God the way you are. You can't receive from God unless
you come confessing that you need Him to lead you and deliver
you all your days, every hour. God will not receive a sinner
unless we come owning what we are. That's the point Christ
is making. He won't arise and help any if we don't come importunate. Importunate. Now look at this.
James 1.5. If any of you lack wisdom, let
him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally. and upbraideth not, and it shall
be given him. But let him ask in faith, let
him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like
a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. For let
not that man think he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double-minded
man is unstable in all his ways. What's a double-minded man? Half
of his mind is, I'm going to seek God in Christ. And the other
half is, but I'm looking to my flesh, and my wisdom, and my
strength, and my righteousness, and my holiness. That's a double-minded
man. And God said, don't think that
that man will receive anything. So if we haven't received anything
from God, it's for one reason. It's not that there's... It's
this. We haven't come to God confessing
we're nothing. We haven't come to God owning
we're absolutely nothing. Period. And that we need salvation
entirely of the Lord. That's it. I remind you this
again. Without faith, it's impossible
to please God. We must come believe in God is
and we must come believe in that God alone is able to reward us
what we need. What we need. Yet God shall answer,
He shall answer when His child comes importunate. When we come
in shameless desperation, confessing our sins, confessing our inability,
our nothingness, we come with a broken and contrite heart.
Have you come asking God for Christ to live in bread because
you can't produce a righteousness of your own? Have you come asking
Him for forgiveness of sin because you can't put away your sin?
Have you come asking Him to deliver you because you cannot even bat
your eye or take your next breath without God providing for you?
That's what I'm talking about. That's what Christ is talking
about. Christ says here in verse 8, I say unto you, though he
will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because
of his opportunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. 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 asketh receiveth,
and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall
be opened. And there's something else very
important here I want you to see. Christ also speaks a word
to us as sons and daughters of God as we continue to ask these
things of our Lord. Because we don't just do this
one time and that's it. He says, when you pray, and a
believer pray, we pray. This is the heartbeat of a believer. Constantly, it's dependence upon
God. Alright, look here, verse 11.
He says, If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father,
will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he
for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will
he offer him a scorpion? The bread and the fish and the
egg signify life. The bread, the fish and the egg
signifies Christ our bread, Christ our propitiation, Christ our
shepherd, Christ our life. That's what this signifies. That's
what every believer wants as a son of God. We want Christ
our bread, Christ our propitiation, Christ our shepherd. That's what
we want. That's what we pray for. But
often, many times, we ask God for things that will issue in
nothing but our death if He gave it to us. We ask Him, we ask
Him in a bad spirit or we ask Him for things that just simply
will not be good for us if God was to give it to us. But if
you fathers wouldn't give your sons death, you wouldn't give
them death, you wouldn't give them a serpent or a scorpion
or a stone, you'd give them life. And he says here, if you then,
being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children,
how much more should your heavenly Father, watch this now, give
the Holy Spirit to them that ask you. Look at Romans chapter
8. What's he mean here? How can
I ask you for the Holy Spirit if I'm dead in sin? He's not
talking about that. He said, He said, if a son asks
his father. We're talking here about you
and I who already believe. That's the only way you're going
to ask God, truly ask God for anything. If you truly believe. Now, if you truly believe and
you ask God for something that's just going to issue in your death,
what's God going to do for you? He's going to give you the Holy
Spirit that's going to teach you to ask aright. Look here,
Romans 8 verse 26. Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth
our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as
we ought. We just don't know what to pray
for. But the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings
which cannot be uttered. So, the Lord shows us that this
prayer, this shameless desperation that we're asking for, it's no
longer prayer for earthly things. It's not prayer for earthly bread.
It's not prayer for long life and riches and health and wealth
and all that stuff. What shall we eat? What shall
we drink? Where shall we be clothed? Those are things that if God
was to give us those things, they would issue in death. But
this prayer is for Christ, our bread of life. It's for Christ,
our propitiation. It's for Christ, our shepherd
to lead and deliver. And so our Lord is teaching us
how every child of God prays as we ought to pray. We can't
even take credit for our praying, brethren. If we pray as we ought
to pray, you know why it is? It's because when we prayed For
what we ought not to pray, Christ prayed the Father who sent forth
the Spirit, who guided us and led us into the truth and taught
us to pray as we ought. And He made intercession for
us as well, just as Christ does. So we can't even take credit
for our prayers. God the Holy Spirit, He gives
us life to dead sinners. God the Holy Spirit convinces
us of sin because we believe not on Christ, of righteousness
because Christ has fulfilled all righteousness and gone to
the Father and the Father receives because He's satisfied. He convinces
us of judgment because Christ said before He went to the cross,
now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And on that
cross, Christ crushed His head. And the Holy Spirit has to convince
us of that. And the Holy Spirit gives us faith and gives us repentance
to turn from our vain way and our vain asking to bring us to
truly ask God. He sprinkles our heart from that
evil conscience and gives us a clean conscience so that we
see that these things are accomplished by Christ. The Holy Spirit robes
us in the righteousness of Christ. The Holy Spirit speaks peace
and pardon to our souls and He turns us back to Christ when
we ask Him yes. And this gift flows to every
elect... Now listen to me. This gift of
the Holy Spirit flows to every elect redeemed child of God because
God promised Christ We would all be born of God, and we would
all be given faith, and we would be justified through faith. I've showed you this, but I'm
going to show you this again, because it is extremely important. Look
at Galatians 3. I told you the other day, not
only do we have all these Scriptures where Christ said, except you
be born again, you can't enter the Kingdom of God, except you
drink My blood, eat My flesh, and drink My blood, which is
faith, believing. You can't enter. Without faith,
it's impossible to please God. I showed you this. I showed you
all these scriptures. I said, beside all of these scriptures,
just plainly declare every child of God must be given faith. Above
all that, do you want God to be a liar? Well, God promised
Christ just the same thing that He promised Abraham, that every
one of His children would be justified through faith. Look here. Galatians 3.16. To Abraham and his seed were
the promises made. He said not to seeds as of many,
but as of one, and to thy seed which is Christ. That means to
Abraham and to Christ were the promises made. Now he tells us
what the promises were. Look back up here at verse 8.
The scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen
through faith. God would justify the heathen
through faith. There is no other way they are
going to be justified. And seeing this was so, he preached before
the gospel unto Abraham. He gave Abraham this promise.
He said, In thee shall all nations be blessed. That's not everybody
in all nations. That's all God's elect in all
the nations. And look here now, look here
at verse 13. Now that same promise was made
to Christ. That same promise was made to
Christ. What's more important? Your doctrine
or God's truthfulness? Your doctrine or God's faithfulness?
Your church's doctrine or God's faithfulness? Well, this is what
God promised Christ, and this is why Christ died. Can you prove
that to me? I sure can. Watch this. Galatians
3.13. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. For it is written,
Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. That, here's the reason
He did it. the blessing of Abraham, that
promise made to Abraham might come on the Gentiles through
Jesus Christ. That, here's why he did it, that
we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. And he predestinated each one
to it. Look at chapter 4. Verse 4, When the fullness of
time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made
under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that,
here's the reason, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And Ephesians 1 says we were
predestinated unto the adoption. There's a predestinated time
when God's going to reveal Christ in every one of His elect children.
To deny that's to deny God. It's to deny His truthfulness.
It's to deny the Scriptures. It's denied the very reason for
which Christ died. Look here, verse 6, And because
ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your
hearts, crying, Abba, Father. I'm pointing this out to you
to show you that when Christ says in our text, when He says
there, let me get here to it, go back
to Luke 11, When He says, 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? He's not giving the Holy Spirit to us because we ask Him
to give the Holy Spirit to us. He's saying, when you come to
God as a child of God, born of the Holy Spirit, and you're asking
for these things amiss, you're really asking for a stone and
a serpent and a scorpion and these things that will not profit.
He says He gives you the Holy Spirit so that you ask Him a
right, so that we pray to Him as we ought to pray. And that
doesn't come because of us, it comes because it comes through
the blood and righteousness of Christ because God the Father
promised Christ He would give it after He redeemed His people.
And Christ said, when I've gone to the cross and when I've risen
to my Father, I'll pray to the Father And He shall give you
another comforter. How could He pray that with such
confidence? Because it was the covenant promise of God that
He would. That He would. They're going
to all be born the first time and they're all going to be born
to the Holy Spirit and given faith to believe on Christ because
God promised His Son He'd do it. He promised His Son He'd
do it. Now, so sinner, here's the point. Seek and you shall
find. Christ is the friend that sticks
closer than a brother. He's the friend at all times.
In the midnight of our souls, come to Him. He says, seek and
you shall find. Ask and it shall be given you.
We confess our sins when we ask. We ask for these three loaves.
Christ our bread. Christ our propitiation, forgiveness
of sin. Christ our shepherd. Lead us
not into temptation. Deliver us from evil. and knock
and it will be open to you. God doesn't open to us based
on friendship. We don't come to God. That's
to come to God as equal with God. We come to God bowed down,
broken hearted, importunate, needy, empty, beggars. And He says, He will rise and
He will open to you. And believer, though we as sons
of God may ask amiss, and we may ask for things that will
not be for our good, Because God's a faithful Father, He'll
send forth the Holy Spirit and He will lead you to ask God aright. God does this for His sheep.
Now, did you see how the man in the parable changed his petition
from basing it on friendship to basing it on opportunity?
First he just came and said, free and open to me. Then he
said, I've got a need. He changed. And then did you
see how these sons who who ask, and we ask of this, how that
God sends forth the Spirit and He changes us and brings us to
ask of right. Here's the point. Prayer doesn't
change God. God uses prayer to change us.
He brings us to bow and to ask of right. That's what the purpose
of prayer is. Alright, amen.