The Friend At Midnight

“And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves;

“For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him?

“And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee.

“I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity 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 ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

“For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

“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?

“If ye 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?” —Luke 11:5–13

The circumstances under which Jesus spoke this parable are these. Many of you will recall, at the beginning of the chapter, it stated that He was praying in a certain place, and, when He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him: “Lord teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”

Lord Teach Us To Pray

Of course, these disciples of Jesus had often prayed. They must have been men of prayer, in some sense, or else they would not have been chosen by Him as His disciples, and yet, when they saw Him pray, and when they listened to Him pray, they must have felt that there was something in His prayer which, in comparison with theirs, made it appear as though they had never prayed. There must have been something in the attitude He assumed towards His God and Father; something in the conscious communion He enjoyed; something in the words He uttered, for He sometimes prayed aloud; something in the results which followed that led them to feel that, if that were prayer, then they had never prayed. No wonder that they asked the Lord to teach them to pray.

As I interpret the meaning of that request, it was this: “Lord, teach us to pray as Thou prayest.”

How glad we ought to be and grateful that He responded to that request of theirs, and not only taught them how to pray, but, through them, has taught us how to pray.

He is here this morning. Is there any request that we want to make of Him more important than this that He would teach us how to pray? Now, He is here this morning in deed, in purity, and in truth. Let us believe that; let us believe that He hears our request, and that He is answering us now as He answered them then.

First of all, He gave them what is sometimes called the “Model Prayer”; sometimes it is known as the “Lord’s Prayer,” not because He Himself ever needed to pray such a prayer; not because He laid the burden upon His disciples always to pray just in those words, but a “model prayer” in the sense that it sets before us certain principles of prayer which, if we obey them and act upon them, will cause us that we shall never fail to obtain access to the throne of grace through His intercession on our behalf.

I have not time this morning to dwell upon those principles because I wish to hasten on to this story that He told them about prayer after he had laid down the principles in the Lord’s Prayer. This story of the “Friend at Midnight” sets before us two great lessons.

Obligation And Nature Of Intercessory Prayer

First of all, a lesson in the obligation and nature of intercessory prayer. Intercessory prayer, as Andrew Murray puts it in his valuable little book, With Christ in the School of Prayer:

“Here are three friends set before us: a needy friend, an asking friend, and a giving friend. These three friends represent the sinner, the saint, and the Saviour. The sinner is the needy friend. He is a traveler at midnight; he is in sore distress; he is in deep spiritual need. He comes to you whom he knows to be a saint of God; he comes to you for spiritual help; he comes to you to be shown the way of salvation; he comes to you for bread to satisfy his soul hunger,—but you have nothing of your own to set before him and not a single thing that can meet his need or satisfy his desire. But you have a friend in God, your heavenly Father, your loving and gracious Saviour, and, it is only as you go to Him on behalf of that needy friend, that you can obtain the three loaves to set before him.”

Now, to illustrate it further: (pardon me if I call you the sinner in this case.) You have gathered here this morning in need, in spiritual need. The need of some is deeper than the need of others. Your soul is an hungered today or you would not be in this holy place. But what have I to set before you of my own that is worthwhile? Nothing whatsoever. I am standing here before you speaking in an interesting way; I may speak even in an instructive way, but so far as meeting your real deep spiritual need is concerned, so far as satisfying your soul hunger goes, I am utterly unable to do that except as I have come before you this morning from the secret presence of the Most High.

I had a lesson taught me in that connection at quite an early period in my ministry, taught me by the words of that dear old Scottish saint, Andrew Bonnar. I was reading his diary and letters, published by his daughter, one day when my eye fell upon this remarkable statement: “It is one thing for a minister to get his message from the Bible, and another thing for him to get his message from God through the Bible.”

I want to say to you, my friends, there is a great distinction between those two things. Many a message have I gotten from the Bible for, during the larger part of my ministry, I have been what might be called a Bible preacher; but there have been times when I have gotten my message from God through the Bible, and those have been the golden times of my experience in Christ.

I want to tell you about one of them which came into my experience just a year ago last August. I was down at Ocean Grove, New Jersey, that great center of the M.E. religious life and was preaching on Sunday morning in the Tabernacle. I was informed that the Tabernacle would hold 10,000 people, and that it would be filled. You may believe that, under those circumstances, when I went to bed on Saturday night, I had a sense of responsibility resting upon me for the message that I should bring. I had prayed to God about it, and I was satisfied that I had a message from the Bible, and it was taken from the Second Epistle of Paul to Timothy. I went to be with that satisfaction, though I did not have the further satisfaction that the message was from God, but I had asked God for it.

About midnight a knock came at my door, and I arose and opened the door, and a bell boy stood there and handed me a telegram. I have preserved that telegram, and I have it here this morning. This is how it reads:

“Brooklyn, N.Y., August 9th, 1919, 9:40 p.m.
“Dr. James M. Gray,
“c/o Auditorium,
“Ocean Grove, N.J.
“Exalt the Lord Jesus Christ, His ascension and acquired glory.
“A brother in His name.”

Who this brother was, I do not know; I never have known. But I had no sooner read the telegram than I felt that God had answered my prayer in His own way, and at once the message from the Bible, that I had obtained, was set aside, and another message from God through the Bible came into my mind and heart. I have reason to believe the truth of that, if I may judge by the results on the following morning.

Now, I have related this experience, and I am calling attention to this teaching of Jesus for the lesson it has to bring to all of us who are ministers and evangelists, Sunday school teachers, and Christian workers of every kind, and also parents who have the responsibility upon them of bringing their children to Christ and training them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. In vain can that be done by any one of us alone even with the Bible in our hand. It is only as we go to the God of the Bible, in intercessory prayer for the needy souls for whose spiritual welfare, for whose spiritual salvation and blessing God may hold us responsible in that day. It is only as the asking friend goes to Him, the giving Friend, that we have the three loaves to set before the needy friend. God helps us to believe that and to act upon it.

Importunity In Prayer

Now, the second lesson from this parable is one of importunity in prayer. For our Lord goes on to say concerning this man who from within was answering and saying: “Trouble me not; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot arise and give thee. I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity 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 ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”

Someone may say, “Is it possible that such a man as this man of the parable, such a churlish and selfish individual as he could in any way symbolize our loving gracious heavenly Father?” No. Except, of course, by contrast. We do not have to tease and torment God by our asking and seeking and knocking in order to get our requests granted. But it were as though Jesus said: If such a man as this will be moved to get out of bed and to open the door and give that which his neighbor asks just because his neighbor continues knocking until he can no longer remain quiet in his bed; how much more will your heavenly Father give unto you who ask Him and seek from him and knock at his door.”

The Necessity Of Prayer

“Oh well,” you say, “that is all right as far as it goes; but what is the use of our asking at all, or rather, what is the necessity of our asking at all? Why should we ask in order to receive? Why should we seek in order to find? Why should we knock in order to have the door opened unto us? Does not God love us?” Yes. “Does He not know our need better than we do ourselves?” Yes. “Is it not true that He is more ready to give than we are to ask?” Yes. “Why then does He call upon us to ask and to seek and to knock?”

Then another thing. Someone will say: “If this be true that God will give us certain things, if we ask for them, if we seek for them, if we knock at His door for them, which He will not give under other circumstance; does not that indicate that man is stronger than God, and would not asking, under such a principle, bring disaster and chaos into the government of the world?”

The very opposite of that is true, and I can give an illustration that will help you to see why it is true. It is one obtained from Dr. Murray, not of South Africa but of Japan, in a remarkable book called The Psychology of Faith. This is the illustration:

You are a farmer, let us say, and you have some young cattle out in the pasture a mile or two away. Periodically you go up to that pasture to look at the cattle and, as the saying is, “to salt them down.” You go out there, carrying under your arm a measure of salt. You go up to the bars of the pasture and begin to call your cattle, and perhaps you shake the measure with the salt a little to give them a hint of what is waiting for them when they come.

By and by the cattle begin to come—some on a run, some on a gentle trot, and some on a stately walk. Some do not come at all. They stand away off, aloof through fear or suspicion or what not; but they do not come up to the bars. Those that come get the salt, and they get more than the salt, for, as they come up to the bars one by one, and you hand the salt out to them in one hand, you pat their neck with the other; you rub their head a little; and you talk to them soothingly, kindly, confidently. Why do you do all that? Why do you take that trouble? Why, to put it in another way, do you give the cattle the trouble? You might go up to the bars and just throw the salt through into the pasture. It would light on a piece of bare ground or smooth rock, and by and by the cattle would find it there. You might just as well do that. It would do the cattle just as much good. Would it? No, no, it would not. You have a reason for taking this pain; you have a reason for making the cattle come and get the salt, and giving only to those that come to get it. What is that reason? I have already suggested it.

When you give them the salt, you want to give them something else. You want to give them the knowledge of yourself. You want your cattle to associate you with the salt. You want your cattle to see the relation between the giver and the gift. When your cattle come to understand that they get that which they so much desire from you, they come to trust you, they come to confide in you, they come to follow you, they come to obey you, they come to serve you. And so, instead of that action, on your part, working disaster and chaos in the government of your farm, it works the opposite. It brings order instead of confusion—benefit of every kind.

Now, God has a reason very much like that in insisting upon it that the creatures whom He has made shall ask to have it given them; shall seek in order to find; shall knock in order to have the door opened to them. His desire is that, when we receive the gift, we shall, at the same time, receive the Giver; that we shall know that there is a personal God back of the gift who loves us, and who loves us as no earthly father ever loved us, and He has so stated and commanded.

God desires to bless even more than we desire to be blessed. Now, I want to fasten that fact upon you,—the necessity for importunity in prayer, by another illustration: one which I obtained a few days ago from the autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. We all know something of Andrew Carnegie. We know he was a good man, as men of the world go. We know he was a very rich man. From a very early period in his life almost everything he touched turned to gold, and by and by, when he got so many millions that he did not know how to handle them, when they could no longer be of any use to him; he began to give them away.

He became a philanthropist, and he built many libraries all over the world and gave alms to certain churches, though he himself never went to church. One thing that pleased him very much was a pension fund, which he started for old workmen who had been with him in earlier days or for widows of some who had passed away.

One day, when drawing near the end of his life, he asked himself this question: “What good am I doing in the world to deserve all my mercies?”

A queer question that, don’t you think? Were these things he had real mercies? Were all the millions which came to him mercies? Was his good health and strength and long life and friends mercies? If they were, he did not deserve one of them. In the very nature of the case, a mercy is something that is undeserved, but Mr. Carnegie thought he deserved them, and so he asked himself this question:

"What good am I doing in the world to deserve all my mercies?”

He felt these things which had come to him were, in some sense, the reward of his good works.

This is how he answers his questions: “Well, the dear friends of the pension list give a satisfactory reply and this always comes to me in need.”

Did this great multimillionaire have a need? That he did. If you ask me what need, I will tell you. The very same need that you and I have—the deepest spiritual need. He must have known like all the rest of mankind,—there must have come times in his life when he asked, “Have I a soul, and will that soul live hereafter, and how will it live hereafter?” When that need was felt, the comfort that he obtained was from the thought that he had started that pension list. It gave him a satisfactory reply.

Then he adds, “I have had far beyond my just share of life’s blessings, therefore I never ask the unknown for anything.”

This is the first man I ever heard of in my life who admitted that he never asked anything of the “unknown”; the first man I ever heard of who seemed to take satisfaction in announcing that he had never prayed.

When you come to think of it, why should any man pray or ask anything of the “unknown”? He did not know the God of the Bible; he did not know the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; he had no faith in the redeeming blood for the Lamb; he was not looking for salvation and these things that the Bible tells about. God to him was the “unknown”, and so he says: “I never ask anything from the unknown.” We are in the presence of universal law. That was his God. A cold, cheerless God, that, I can tell you.

He goes on to say, “We should obey the judge within, asking nothing, fearing nothing, just doing our duty, and seeking no reward here or hereafter.”

How I thank God that my God is not an unknown God. How I thank God that He who was in the bosom of the Father, Jesus Christ His Son, hath revealed Him unto me. How I thank God that He compels me to ask in order that I may receive. Because, when I have received, I feel the touch of the hand of the divine giver who presents the gift.

Oh, thank God, that He makes me seek in order to find because when, under those circumstances, I find my heart goes out in loving gratitude to Him who made me seek.

I am glad that he makes me knock in order that the door may open, because when, under those circumstances, the door is opened I find Him in whom my soul delighteth standing at the threshold ready to receive me and to do for me exceeding abundantly above all I ask or think.

I ask you to praise God with me this morning, you men and women who know God through Jesus Christ His Son. I ask you to praise God with me this morning not only for answered prayer, but for the compulsion that rests upon us to ask in order that it may be given; the compulsion that rests upon us to seek that we may find; the compulsion that rests upon us to knock in order that the door may be opened unto us. “For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”

I tell you, my friends, that we have a God and Father that is worthwhile. So I urge any man or woman, boy or girl in this assembly today, who has not yet come to Him, the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to come now.

“Just as thou art without one trace
Of love or joy or inward grace,
Or meekness for that heavenly place:
O guilty sinner, come.”

God help you to do it and to know the joy and the power and the peace and the blessing of those who are in this fellowship through His Son.