Prayer Certified of Success

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Luke 11:9-10

And I say to you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.…

Our Saviour 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.

I. OUR SAVIOUR GIVES TO US THE WEIGHT OF HIS OWN AUTHORITY. "I say unto you."

1. No laws of nature can prevent the fulfilment of the Lord's own word.

2. No Divine decrees can prevent the efficacy of prayer.

3. Notwithstanding God's majesty and thy weakness and sinfulness, thy prayer shall move the arm that moves the world.

II. OUR LORD PRESENTS US WITH A PROMISE.

1. Note that the promise is given to several varieties of prayer.

2. Observe that these varieties of prayer are put on an ascending scale. "Ask" — the statement of our wants. "Seek" signifies that we marshall our arguments. "Knock" — importunity.

3. These three methods of prayer exercise a variety of our graces. Faith asks, hope seeks, love knocks.

4. These three modes of prayer suit us in different stages of distress. There am I, a poor mendicant at mercy's door, I ask, and I shall receive. I lose my way, so that I cannot find Him of whom I once asked so successfully; well, then, I may seek with the certainty that I shall find. And if I am in the last stage of all, not merely poor and bewildered, but so defiled as to feel shut out from God like a leper shut out of the camp, then I may knock and the door will open to me.

5. Each one of these different descriptions of prayer is exceedingly simple.

III. JESUS TESTIFIES TO THE FACT THAT PRAYER IS HEARD.

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