We come to this crisis in life and we realise we cannot solve our own problems, we cannot just give ourselves spiritual life, we cannot lift ourselves up, we cannot do anything to please God and to find acceptance with him; we must find a friend – obviously not an earthly friend, but a heavenly friend. We say, ‘Lord, help me. I have been a fool, I haven't asked for blessing, I am an unconverted person, spiritually dead, cut off, and lost. Lord, provide for me and help me.’ There is one we may approach, the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, the Saviour of mankind. Actually he is not my friend, I have ignored him, you might think the parallel breaks down. I have avoided him, I have offended him, I have stolen life from him. He made me but I have stolen life and taken it all for myself. I have even slandered him perhaps. But the point is, he is a friend in this sense: he is approachable. He is like a friend even though I do not deserve it, in that he is approachable by people in spiritual need.
But while Jesus Christ is approachable, you do not just walk into his presence; it is not quite that easy. So often when we begin to think and we approach Almighty God we are rebuffed. A great theologian centuries ago, John Owen, put it like this: he said, for most sinners when they first approach the door of Christ, and they call out for help, the door remains firmly shut. And so it does; we receive a rebuff from Almighty God. I have no answer to my prayers; nothing happens. My most pressing problem is not solved. What is happening? What has gone wrong? Perhaps you begin to pray, ‘Oh God, if you are there, show me. Show me what I have to do. Solve my problem, my pressing problem whatever it might be. Help me.’ What will happen when you go to God? Here is the teaching of the parable and it's a shock, it's a surprise. You seem to come up against a reluctance in God.
There was a young woman many years ago and she had some difficulty in seeking and finding the Lord and she told me this. She said that in all her life she had always been very forward and she had always got what she wanted. She was rather a glamorous young woman, and she had sought to get into a number of glamorous jobs and occupations and she had succeeded. She would evidently say, ‘I am going to be an actress’, or ‘I am going to be a model’, and she got there. Doors were never shut to her; there was no door she could not push open and walk in, and do as she please. Then she came under this sense that she desperately needed the forgiveness of God and she needed a new life, so she came to church and what did she do? She went home on her knees and she prayed to God, ‘Lord, forgive me, and Lord, receive me’, and nothing happened. She kept this up for weeks and she said, ‘Why is it that God has listened to some of my friends, but he won't accept me? I have had no change in my nature; I have had no certainty that my sins are forgiven; it hasn't happened to me.’ And almost as soon as she asked the question it dawned on her why it hadn't happened to her. She realised God was saying to her, ‘You have done everything you wanted, but you are going to come to me in the right spirit. You don't just push in here. You come here to me on your knees; you come to me repenting of your sin, throwing aside your pride, longing for salvation. You trust in Jesus Christ alone, knowing that you don't deserve it.’ The problem was she was not coming like that. God wants sincerity from us. There is a door and it is shut and it will only open if you ask with real need, with real earnestness, and with real sorrow for sin and desire for a new life. In one way it isn't difficult. All I have to sense is my need and to mean my approach, but until I do, that door is not opened. It is locked and the friend will not respond to it. No one entertains a guest at midnight unnecessarily.