No; God will not answer bad prayers--that is, prayers for what is bad. People sometimes make such prayers and expect him to answer them. They pray for vengeance on those who have injured them; they pray that others may suffer as much as they have made them suffer, and the like. {256} Or they pray for something which seems to them good, but really is not so--that they may get rich, for instance, when riches will only be an occasion of sin to them. The prayer seems to them good, but it is not; perhaps even those prayers for vengeance may seem so. But God knows better, and will not, as he says in the Gospel of to-morrow, give us a stone when we ask for what seems to be bread. If anything, he will give better, instead of worse, than what we ask. But really most things that Christians would think of praying for are not bad; but you do not pray for them, because you think that if they are good for you, you will get them, if you try, whether you pray or not. Now, that is the great mistake which our Lord wishes to correct. When he says, "If you ask the Father anything in my name, he will give it you," that means, also, that if you do not ask he will not, or at least not in such abundance. Try, then, to bring this truth home to yourselves and make it practical: that if you want anything the way to get it is to ask it from God, not forgetting, of course, to work for it as well as to pray; for no one prays in earnest who does not do that. And the way not to get it is not to ask for it. Pray, then, for what you want; and of course, before praying, find out what you do want. You want, for instance, to be kept from sin; but what sin? What is the one you are most inclined to? Examine your conscience and find out. Then your prayer will really mean something, especially if it be accompanied by good and strong resolutions against your besetting vices. {257} If you know what you want, and pray for it in Christ's name and in earnest, using all other means to get it, it shall, if it be good, be yours. That is the lesson of our Lord's words in the Gospel of to-day. --------------- Sermon LXXV. _Amen, amen I say to you, if you ask the Father anything in my name, He will give it you._ St. John xvi. 23. These words must be true, my brethren, for it is the Eternal Truth who has spoken them. And yet I dare say you cannot see how they are. You have often, perhaps, asked God for something which you wanted, and put our Lord's name to your prayers, and yet you have not got the thing on which your heart was set. Well, let us see what is the matter; why it is that our experience seems to contradict our faith. It may be that, though the words seem plain, we do not understand them aright. Perhaps we are under a mistake as to what is meant by asking in the name of Christ. Let us consider what is really the common and natural sense of asking for anything in somebody else's name. What should we ourselves mean by it?