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The trio clauses of this verse will all be best understood if they are sufficiently viewed as what may be called representative words. They stand for a whole type of thought, fact, truth. These same challenges and assurances linked, we find repeated much later in the life of Christ (Luke 11:29). It adds to our conviction that these utterances of our great Teacher were of the nature that might be designated very studied and deliberate, very designed and far on-looking. The three clauses cannot for a moment be supposed to be merely repetitions, nor even merely three ways of putting the same essential thing. They require to be considered seriatim. Each grows on that which precedes it, and the added force is only obtainable at the end. The first of the clauses is sure to be the most generic, elementary, fundamental. The prospect which it holds out seems to one sometimes vague, sometimes too comprehensive to be anything but the language of extravagance or exaggeration. It has had the effect perhaps of producing misgiving in the heart. Note then -

I. CHRIST IS NOT SPEAKING OF MEN IN THEIR WIDE, SCATTERED, UNCERTAIN RELATIONS TO THE WORLD AND TO ONE ANOTHER; HE HAS THE BEGINNING OF HIS OWN SCHOOL BEFORE HIM, WHICH SHOULD INDEED BECOME LARGE AND VARIOUS TILL IT GATHERED ALL IN ITS EMBRACE, AND IT IS WHAT THESE, AS HIS LEARNERS, HIS FOLLOWERS, HIS SERVANTS, MAY RELY UPON, THAT HE DECLARES. Let the world speak for itself, publish its manifesto, which it does large enough, loud enough, false enough. Jesus here speaks his own manifesto, and it is deficient by no means in largeness, but awaiting the test of quality and reliableness! Ever since, all who have in any sense, in any appreciable degree, really known Jesus, have been investigating, testing, pronouncing upon these two things - what his Word is good for, and how good he is to his Word.

II. CHRIST HAS AN OPEN EAR AND AN OPEN' HAND; FOSTERS EXPECTATION, AND DOES NOT DISAPPOINT IT; INVITES PRAYER - PRAYER WIDE, VARIOUS, IMPORTUNATE, LARGE - AND THEN' DEALS BOUNTIFULLY FROM HIS TREASURY AND WITH HIS OWN INFINITE RESOURCES. Facts all answer to these assertions. The very genius of Christ's truth points to them. That truth is not repressive to the mind, not contracting to the heart, not crushing to the life, not adverse to knowledge, to civilization, to brotherly fellowship, to practical benevolence. To all appearance Christ himself was nowhere without exciting a vast amount of inquiry and a vast variety of it. Never was breath of wind so healthful, so enlivening, so purifying by a millionth part, as was the breath of his Word. And wherever his truth has travelled, rested, paid the casual visit, or rooted itself, its force has been of similar kind. It has taught and provoked men to ask for things outside of and above themselves, and with no idle fancy and no unrewarded desire has their eye rolled from earth to heaven. Things they never dreamed of before have become visions of brightness at which they gazed, objects of attraction that never lost their power, and of solemn practical quest which they never rested till they found and secured. They have been led to want to ask, have asked, and have found. In all this world there is no asking which conies near to that which Christ has originated in it - so large, so various, so deep or again high in its nature, and so richly rewarded. Souls ask, and souls have given to them, beyond all ambition's asking, or love of money's asking, or love of pleasure's asking, or love of life's asking, or the goading of misery's asking. Most native, therefore, to the spirit of Christ was it, is it, to say "Ask," and in his radiant generosity of nature to "give" to the asking! Oh! wonderful fountain of fresh life, Giver of good, Pitier of sorrow, Rescuer from death - it is he whose free, unqualified invitation needs but one short word in which to express itself, and that word "Ask." - B.

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KJV: Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

WEB: "Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you.