01.21. The Sermon on the Mount (29)
The Sermon on the Mount (29) Prayer Once More
Matthew 7:7-12 In this section of the Sermon on the Mount the Lord Jesus speaks again -seemingly abruptly-about prayer, that is asking from God. He had already given His disciples teaching on prayer in chapter 6:5-13 which contains the so-called ’Lord’s prayer’. Whilst warning them against outward appearance in that chapter, He also showed them the kind of confidence they ought to have in God as the source of strength and provider of help for the path of
Fervent Prayer
’Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you’ (Matthew 7:7). Although the Lord Jesus does not mention the word ’pray’, but speaks of asking, seeking and knocking, the following verses make clear that he is encouraging the disciples-who He speaks to first-to pray fervently. Luke, who records the events of the Lord’s life and His words in their inner moral sense, lets the passage follow as His answer to the disciple’s plea: ’Lord, teach us to pray’ (Luke 11:1-13). An increasing intensity is recognisable in the three verbs ’ask, seek, knock’
’Ask’ will be found in various references in the Word of God as a special form of prayer (for example John 11:22; John 14:13; Colossians 1:9; James 1:5)
’Seek’ is the upright, earnest endeavour to find something (see Psalms 34:4; Isaiah 55:6)
’Knock’ indicates that outward hindrances and shyness can be overcome as well.
Asking reveals the desire of the one praying. Seeking and knocking however indicate that prayers will not always be answered immediately. We are all in danger of becoming tired and weary in our prayers. But the Lord gives a definite promise to all: ’it shall be given you ... ye shall find, ... it shall be opened unto you’. What an illustration these three phrases give of the divine answer to ceaseless and fervent prayer (Acts 12:5; James 5:16). And they hold true for every follower of the Lord today as well as the disciples of the Lord at the time He spoke to them.
He shows us this in the following verse: ’For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened’ (Matthew 7:8). These words appear to be a repetition of the previous verse but in reality they extend their application to all believers, for the Lord only speaks to believers in the Sermon on the Mount. A Comparison
Matthew 7:9-10 : ’Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?’ The Lord Jesus uses an illustration which everybody can understand. He speaks of the normal relation between a son and his father which is marked by love and confidence. The son is in trouble and asks his father for bread or a fish, that is things necessary for daily living. He does not demand as the son in Luke 15:12 did. Neither does he ask amiss, that is to fulfil his fleshly lusts (about which James 4:3 warns us). No, he asks his father trustingly and without doubting, for what he is really in need. The Lord teaches in such a way that the father’s answer to the son’s request is ’yes’. He will not disappoint his son’s confidence by giving him a stone instead of a bread, neither will he endanger him by giving a serpent instead of a fish.
Matthew 7:11 : ’If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?’ This is the application of the illustration in regard to the relation between the disciples and God. To start with, the Lord Jesus reminds them of the fact that every man is evil by nature, a fact which has been so since the fall. God had said already at the time of Noah that the thought of man’s heart is evil from his youth (Genesis 8:21). David reveals a deep understanding of God’s assessment of men as he says in Psalms 51:5 : ’Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.’ But when men judged the only sinless one on the cross of Calvary as a criminal the total depravity of human nature was revealed in its entirety. The nature of the ’old man’, that is of the flesh, is incorrigible, and this is why God gives new and everlasting life and a new nature to every one who believes. As long as we live here we shall carry the old, evil nature with us and to repeatedly call to mind the sad judgment ’that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing’ and the admonishment to ’walk in newness of life’ (Romans 7:18; Romans 6:4).
None of the disciples could know these things until their Lord and master had accomplished His work of redemption. The Lord mentions the evil of the human heart to stress the difference between the love of the kindest of human fathers and the perfect love of God. If even imperfect and naturally evil men like to fulfil requests of their children, how much more will God, the great giver, do so! Every good gift and every perfect gift comes from him, who gives liberally to all men and does not upbraid (James 1:1-27). This is the very God the Lord Jesus presents to his disciples as their ’father, which is in heaven’. He has done so on more than one occasion in the sermon on the mount (Matthew 5:16; Matthew 5:48, etc.). And yet the full wealth of the relationship could only be revealed after the Lord Jesus had accomplished his redemptive work (John 20:17; Romans 8:14-17). However the disciples could start to rejoice in the fact already. A ’Golden Rule’
’Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets’ (Matthew 7:12). This verse which has been called the ’golden rule’ of love does not only conclude the first paragraph of chapter 7 but also concludes the whole of the teaching which began in Matthew 5:17 with the words of the Lord: ’Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.’ The law and the prophets here stand for the whole of the Old Testament and its teachings (compare other references: Luke 16:16; Acts 13:15). In contrast to what most of the scribes and Pharisees made out of it the Lord Jesus had come to display it in its fullness. In the next part of the sermon He had repeatedly pointed to the fact that the outward, apparent righteousness of the scribes was reprehensible. Most of what he said concerned his disciples’ relationship to their fellowmen, and these teachings he summarises with the words: ’Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.’
What a contrast to the well-known saying: ’Don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you.’ Even the Rabbis and the Greeks had a similar saying! It contains no more than the negative warning not to do evil to our fellowman. In contrast the Lord Jesus summarises his teaching by the positive command to do for one’s fellowman all that we would like to receive ourselves. We can only do this in the strength of God’s love. Paul later writes to the Romans: ’Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law’ (Romans 13:10). This is also an encouragement for us to exercise godly love in order to be real disciples of our Lord.