Luke 11:10

These things we suffer by our own fault and our own deserving, even as the divine judgment has forewarned us, saying, "If they forsake my law and walk not in my judgments, if they profane my statutes and keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquities with stripes." It is for this reason that we feel the rods and the stripes, because we neither please God with good deeds nor atone for our sins.

Second, with respect to the exhortation regarding all, he adds: For everyone who asks receives, if he devoutly asks. Whence the Lord intimates this in John 15: "If you shall ask the Father anything in my name, he will give it to you," that is, …

For everyone (he says) who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Therefore, according to the previous parable of the requesting friend, perseverance is required so that we may receive what we ask, find what we …

"Everyone who asks receives." Does the one who asks for useless things receive? No. For, first of all, a request for useless things cannot even be called a request before God. For whoever prays to God must ask for what He gives. And if someone …

): " Ask, and it shall be given you; either the thing itself you shall ask or that which is equivalent; either the thorn in the flesh removed, or grace sufficient given in."--We had this before, Matt. vii. We have it from Christ's own mouth, who knows his Father's mind, and in whom all promises are yea and amen.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens

For every one that asketh receiveth,....

In these verses, our Lord Jesus Christ instructs us about prayer. The subject is one which can never be too strongly pressed on our attention. Prayer lies at the very root of our practical Christianity. It is part of the daily business of our Christian life. We have reason to thank God, that upon no point has our Lord Jesus Christ spoken so fully and frequently, as upon prayer. We learn for one thing, from these verses — the importance of perseverance in prayer. This lesson is conveyed to us in the simple parable, commonly called the "Friend at Midnight." We are there reminded what man can obtain from man, by the force of importunity . As selfish and indolent as we naturally are — we are capable of being roused to exertion, by continual asking . The man who would not give three loaves at midnight for friendship's sake, at length gave them — to save himself the trouble of being further entreated. The application of the parable is clear and plain. If importunity succeeds so well, between man and man — then how much more may we expect it to obtain mercies, when used in prayer to God . The lesson is one which we shall do well to remember. It is far more easy to begin a habit of prayer, than to keep it up. Myriads of professing Christians are regularly taught to pray when they are young — and then gradually leave off the practice as they grow up. Thousands take up a habit of praying for a little season, after some special mercy or special affliction — and then little by little become cold about it, and at last lay it aside. The secret thought comes stealing over men's minds, that "it is no use to pray." They see no visible benefit from it. They persuade themselves that they get on just as well without prayer. Laziness and unbelief prevail over their hearts, and at last they altogether "diminish prayer before God." (Job 15:4.)

In these verses, our Lord Jesus Christ instructs us about prayer. The subject is one which can never be too strongly pressed on our attention. Prayer lies at the very root of our practical Christianity. It is part of the daily business of our Christian life. We have reason to thank God, that upon no point has our Lord Jesus Christ spoken so fully and frequently, as upon prayer. We learn for one thing, from these verses — the importance of perseverance in prayer. This lesson is conveyed to us in the simple parable, commonly called the "Friend at Midnight."

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.