1. Some times for family altar we read stories of great missionaries. For awhile we were reading a book by a missionary to China named Rosalind Goforth. Her book was called How I Know God Answers Prayer.
2. I wanted my children to know that God does answer prayer.
3. That was a great book but we do not need books to tell us God answers prayer – we have the Book, the Bible (cf. Matt.7:7,8).
4. When Rosalind Goforth and her husband, Jonathan, were getting ready to go into the province of Honan in China, Hudson Taylor wrote to Mr. Goforth: "It is one of the most anti-foreign provinces in China…Brother, if you would enter that province, you must go forward on your knees."
5. I save all our church bulletins. One day I was looking through some of them. I read things like this: "Pray that we can find a building." Then it became: "Pray that we can afford to buy the building we have found," etc.
6. Some Christians keep a prayer journal. We know God answers prayer.
7. Before we get into our text today, let me state a few basic principles concerning prayer:

1. God definitely wants us to pray (7:7,8; cf. Pro.15:8; Jer.33:3; John 14:13,14; 16:23,24). Prayer is not only our privilege but our duty.
2. We are not to waver (Mark 11:22-26; James 1:5-8; 4:2,3).
3. We must pray according to God’s will (I John 5:14,15).
4. We must keep God’s commandments (John 14:13-15; I John 3:22).

I. PRAYER IS GOD’S WAY TO SUPPLY OUR NEEDS (Mt.7:7,8).

1. Please take note of the persistence involved in genuine prayer – "Ask…seek…knock" (7:7,8; cf. Luke 18:1-8; 11:1-3).
2. One of the advantages of the King James translation of the Bible is its literalness and its precision. The "eth" ending indicates the present tense and continuous action – "keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking."
3. People often ask: Why does God want us to keep on persistently praying? Why doesn’t He grant the answer to our prayers immediately? Why does He seem to delay our requests? Answer: God does not always move at once because the petitioner is not yet in a fit state to receive what he asks.
4. God is working in us, and prayer changes people. "Prayer is not to persuade God to do something that He didn’t intend to do; prayer is to get you and me in line with the program of God" – J. Vernon McGee.
5. "It is going to school for us when we are set to plead with God for awhile without realized success. It makes a man grow more earnest, for his hunger increases while he tarries. If he obtained the blessing the first time he asked for it, it might seem dog cheap; but when he has to plead long he arrives at a better sense of the value of the mercy sought" – C.H. Spurgeon.
6. "When prayer is long in the answering it will be all the sweeter in the receiving, like fruit which is well ripened by hanging longer on the tree" – CHS.

II. GOD WANTS TO GIVE "GOOD THINGS" TO HIS CHILDREN (7:9-11).

1. This is an important Bible principle and unfortunately it has been abused by the charismatics ("name it and claim it").
2. We need to keep in mind that this promise is only for God’s children (7:11).
3. When the conditions are met, the Christian can have complete confidence that God will hear and answer his prayers.
4. "Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance. It is laying hold of God’s willingness" – George Muller.
5. I read that when the Germans were dropping bombs on London during WWII, there was a sign in front of one of the churches that said: "If your knees knock together, kneel on them!"
6. Our Lord argues from the lesser to the greater. If human parents, "being evil" (totally depraved), give their children what they ask for, how much more will our heavenly Father do so (7:9-11).

III. THESE "GOOD THINGS" ARE SPIRITUAL (cf. Luke 11:13).

1. Too many Christians are only concerned with their temporal needs. There is nothing wrong with praying for our temporal needs. In fact, we ought to pray about everything.
2. But James says, "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts" (James 4:3).
3. By comparing Matt.7:11 with Luke 11:13, I think we can see that our emphasis should be on spiritual blessings, not worldly "good things."
4. By the way, I think when we pray for our building situation, we are praying right because this building will help us to reach more souls. Whether we like it or not, we have to admit that certain people will not come to a tent meeting but they will come to a renovated fish market! So keep on praying!
5. I heard a true story of a little girl who was about to undergo a serious operation. After placing her on the operating table, the attendant began to prepare her for the anesthetic. The little girl asked the surgeon what the attendant was doing and he replied: "Before we can make you well, we must put you to sleep."
6. The little girl said, "Then I must say my prayers before I go to sleep," and she began to pray. After praying, she said: "OK – I’m ready now, Doctor." Later on that doctor testified that this incident prompted him to pray too – for the first time in thirty years.
7. And when he prayed he asked the Lord to save him.

CONCLUSION:

1. I was reading a sermon by Spurgeon the other night and he said that back in the old days, doors used to have large nails on them, called "doornails." Above the doornail was the door-knocker.
2. People would bang very vigorously and so the knocker would come down very hard on the doornail. Hence, the expression, "dead as a doornail."
3. Beloved, we need to be knocking very vigorously (7:7,8). I believe if we do, we will get into our building very soon.
4. And while we are knocking on God’s door, let us keep knocking on all the other doors here in Elmont and beyond.