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This familiar text is usually quoted, and rightly so, as being one of the most precious promises and encouragements to prayer which the Bible contains; but if you look at the text, it is far more than a promise encouraging prayer. It is a declaration of the condition of our receiving any good gift from God. For reasons which may not be fully intelligible to us, God has limited His mercy. There is the treasure-house full of grace. You go up to it; the doors are locked. You must knock, or they will not be opened. There is the river of life open to all, but you may die from thirst on its banks unless you kneel. Ask, says Christ, then you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. This is really the final mystery of prayer. Why do we need to pray at all? Can love that waits to be asked be perfect love? And the mystery is deepened when you remember the very people that need God's grace most are those that never ask for it — wicked people, indifferent people, immoral people, unbelieving people, Godless people. They are the people that need the grace, and they will not ask for it. And yet God says, "No grace unless it be sought." Ye have not — why? Not because you do not need it. Ye have not, because ye ask not. That, I repeat, is the great mystery of prayer.

I. I do not pretend to be able to offer you any full explanation of the mystery, but there are three CONSIDERATIONS WHICH HELP TO ALLEVIATE THE DIFFICULTY A LITTLE.

1. First of all, it is clear that prayer recognizes the sovereign freedom of the human will. Oh! it is an awful thing, that human freedom of ours! Why, my brethren, God lifts His little finger, and the stoutest heart would open its door. But if God entered a heart against its will, He would not enter a heart. He would enter a ruin. And to make prayer a condition of God's gift recognizes even in man's deepest sin the noble freedom of the human will.

2. Then, again, prayer at least implies some sympathy of the will of him who prays with God. You know that there are cables beneath the Atlantic which connect this country with America. Now and then you read in the papers that interruption has taken place in the cable. No messages pass, and the cause of the interruption is some defect in the conveying power in the wire; some fault, as the electricians call it, in the cable itself. Well, now, just so there may be moral faults in the will which may make it impossible for God to give unless we are in sympathy with Him; and to make prayer, therefore, the condition of God's gift is to imply inward sympathy of will with God.

3. And then, last of all, you cannot doubt — and I shall speak of that in a moment more fully — that whether we can understand the mystery of prayer or not, there is something in prayer, altogether apart from the answers which God gives to it, which justifies prayer. A great thinker once said: "I have conquered all my doubts, not with my books, but on my knees." "On my knees": ah, yes! And I have sometimes thought that if those golden gates of heaven were never opened for any answer to prayer to pass through, prayer would be enough by itself. There is something in the reflex attitude and influence and effect of prayer which makes prayer in itself a blessing. Ask, and the very asking is a grace. Seek, and before the answer comes you have found something worth finding. Knock, and that very knock is a blessing. But whether we can understand it or not, this is the law: I could almost put the law of prayer into a single sentence to which there is no exception — much prayer, much blessing; little prayer, little blessing; no prayer, no blessing.

II. Now, let me turn to the brighter side of this text, and ask you to consider for a few moments some of the BLESSINGS WHICH COME TO THOSE WHO OBEY THIS GREAT LAW OF THE KINGDOM. Let me encourage you to pray by these blessings.

1. First of all, I cannot find a word, though I have tried hard, to exactly express what I mean when I say that the first blessing of prayer is this: the unconscious cheek it imposes on the life. Any of you who spend half an hour every morning with God will know what I mean. You weave about your life a network of self-restraint never seen, most potent, most real, most felt when most needed. St. Paul had a word, a favourite word; and St. Paul was a very passionate man, a fiery man; but there was a very favourite word with him; it is translated most inadequately in our version, "moderation." The Greek word menus "high mastery of self"; and that is what prayer gives a man.

2. The other day I was reading an article by one of our scientific men who has given up all belief in the supernatural in any answers to prayer, and yet he said these words: "If any one abandons prayer, he abandons one of the highest forces which mould and benefit human character." I do not wonder at it. You could not go into the presence of God, if God never answered prayer, without receiving a blessing. When Moses was on the Mount, we read that he came down from it, and his face shone, though he wist it not. There are shining faces in the streets of London to-day, if you have eyes to see them — men, women, not beautiful by nature, but beautiful by what is more than nature, beautiful with God's own beauty. You look at them, and you think of the words in Tennyson's "In Memoriam":

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KJV: And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

WEB: "I tell you, keep asking, and it will be given you. Keep seeking, and you will find. Keep knocking, and it will be opened to you.