At this point, then, we have actually reached the first great statement of the solution to the problem of human morality. But before we pursue it, it is necessary to see that the major effect that the Golden Rule was intended to have on human goodness was to condemn it. It wipes it out. By this standard, all natural human goodness is condemned, and being weighed in the balances, is found wanting. 

I know that there is something about the idea of prevailing prayer that, at least on the surface, seems contrary to a Calvinistic way of thinking, but the conflict is only superficial. In two of the parables of the Lord Jesus, there is the story of a person who prevailed in a request by means of perseverance. In Luke 11:5-10, there is the story of a man who lacked food to feed a guest who arrived at his home at midnight. He went to his neighbor. At first the neighbor did not want to be bothered, but at last he gave the things that were needed because of the man's persistence. 

The second obvious teaching of these verses is that even if we are Christians, we must ask for the thing that God promises. This section of God's Word contains the positive statement of the principle ("Ask, and it shall be given you”). James 4:2 contains the negative statement ("Ye have not, because ye ask not"). But the teaching of both texts is identical. God delights to give good gifts to His children. Hence, if we do not have them, the fault does not lie in God. It lies in our failure to ask things of Him. 

If a young man wants to ask his father for something, he will pattern his request on the nature and the temperament of his father. If the father is ill-tempered and stingy, the young man will ask for little. He will take care to present his need in the most winsome and unobjectionable manner. If the father is good-natured and is generous, the child will present his need openly and with great confidence. 

Besides wrongly admitting people into church membership without a clear statement of faith, I am afraid, too, that there are many persons in our day for whom the Lord's table has become a curse rather than a God-given blessing. For it has led many a person to think that he is right with God merely because he has followed some rite of the Christian religion.