Lesson 26: The Boldness of God’s Friends, part 1
Luke 11:5-8 - And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend, will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will rise and give him whatever he needs.”
The first teaching to His disciples was given by our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount. It was near a year later that the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray. In answer, He gave them a second time the Lord’s Prayer, so teaching them what to pray. He then speaks of how they ought to pray, and repeats what he formerly said of God’s Fatherliness and the certainty of an answer. But in between He adds the beautiful parable of the friend at midnight, to teach them the two-fold lesson, that God does not only want us to pray for ourselves, but for the perishing around us, and that in such intercession great boldness of entreaty is often needful, and always lawful, yes, pleasing to God.
The parable is a perfect storehouse of instruction in regard to true intercession. There is, first, the love which seeks to help the needy around us: “my friend is come to me.” Then the need which urges to the cry “I have nothing to set before him.” Then follows the confidence that help is to be had: “which of you shall have a friend, and say, Friend, lend me three loaves.” Then comes the unexpected refusal: “I cannot rise and give you.” Then again the perseverance that takes no refusal: “because of his persistence”
Lastly, the reward of such prayer: “he will give him as many as he needs.” A wonderful setting forth of the way of prayer and faith in which the blessing of God has so often been sought and found. Let us confine ourselves to the chief thought: prayer as an appeal to the friendship of God; and we shall find that two lessons are specially suggested. The one, that if we are God’s friends, and come as such to Him, we must prove ourselves the friends of the needy; God’s friendship to us and ours to others go hand in hand. The other, that when we come this way, we may use the utmost liberty in claiming an answer.
There is a two-fold use of prayer: the one, to obtain strength and blessing for our own life; the other, the higher, the true glory of prayer, for which Christ has taken us into His fellowship and teaching, is intercession, where prayer is the royal power a child of God exercises in heaven on behalf of others and even of the kingdom. We see it in Scripture, how it was in intercession for others that Abraham and Moses, Samuel and Elijah, with all the holy men of old, proved that they had power with God and prevailed. It is when we give ourselves to be a blessing that we can specially count on the blessing of God.
Prayer: Oh my Blessed Lord and Teacher, I must come to You in prayer. Your teaching is so glorious, and yet too high for me to grasp. I must confess that my heart is too little to take in these thoughts of the wonderful boldness I may use with My Father as my Friend. Lord Jesus, I trust You to give me Your Spirit with Your Word, and to make the Word quick and powerful in my heart. I desire to keep Your Word of this day: “Because of his persistence he will give him as many as he needs.”