The principle which we have been illustrating applies only to one
half—and that the less important half—of our prayers and of Christ's
answers. For in regard to spiritual blessings, and our petitions for
fuller, purer, and diviner life, there is no delay. In that region the
law is not 'He abode still two days in the same place,' but 'Before
they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear.'
If you have been praying for deeper knowledge of God, for lives liker
His, for hearts more filled with the Spirit, and have not had the
answer, do not fall back upon the misapplication of such a principle as
this of my text, which has nothing to do with that region; but remember
that the only reason why good people do not immediately get the
blessings of the Christian life for which they ask lies in themselves,
and not at all in God. 'Ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask and
have not, because'—not because He delays, but because—'ye ask amiss,'
or because, having asked, you get up from your knees and go away, not
looking to see whether the blessing is coming down or not.
Ah! there is a sad amount of lying and hypocrisy in prayers for
spiritual blessings. Many petitioners do not want to have them. They
would not know what to do with them if they got them. They make the
requests because their fathers did so before them, and because these
are the right kind of things to say in a prayer. Such prayers get no
answers. If a man prays for some spiritual enlargement, and then goes
out into the world and lives clean contrary to his prayers, what right
has he to say that God delays His answers? No, He does not delay His
answers, but we push back His answers, and the gift that _is_ given we
will not take. Let us remember that the two halves of the divine
dealings are not regulated by the same principle, though they be
regulated by the same motive; and that the love which often delays for
our good, in regard to the desires that have reference to outward
things, is swift as the lightning to answer every petition which moves
within the circle of our spiritual life.
'Whatsoever things ye desire, when ye stand praying, believe that' then
and there 'ye receive them'; and the undelaying God will take care that
'you shall have them.'