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ASKING FOR BREAD AND
GETTING STONES
“If a son
shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give
him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish
give him a serpent? Or if he ask an egg, will he
offer him a scorpion? If ye then being evil, know
how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall
your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask
Him?” (Luke 11:11-13)
In the passage cited above,
our Lord drew attention to the three most elementary yearnings
of man, namely hunger, thirst and hope. To die of
starvation or thirst is to experience the most terrifying,
excruciating agony of body and mind. To be in this
condition and ask a father for bread…only to be rewarded with
a stone, is cruel beyond measure. To substitute a
venomous serpent for a fish, would be appalling.
Could it be possible that a son would ask an egg of his father
and be offered a stinging scorpion instead? These
are the most natural requests and the most improbable answers
possible. And yet it is in the light of these
comparisons that the Father offers the Holy Spirit to those
who ask Him.
Of course it’s not likely for any
father to offer his son stones when he seeks for
bread. However, not all hunger is satisfied by
eating. There are spiritual cravings that cannot
be appeased by food at all. The hunger and thirst
of the soul for spiritual satisfaction is very
real. The longing hope to be able to begin life
over again is not foreign to any of us. What are
we giving or offering men to meet these very real spiritual
cravings?
Suppose a man starts out in life with
high ideals, but a weak will. He succumbs to temptation
and seeks to satisfy his hunger with the vain foibles of this
world. He indulges in pleasure until its “broken
cistern” no longer satisfies him. He aspires for
wealth and power, but somehow happiness eludes
him. He seeks peace through travel, but is
disillusioned. At last, he wonders if the church
can help him and gropes his way into it asking for bread,
where he has heard they offer the Bread of Life.
Now, it is true that Jesus said, “I am the Bread of
Life.” He does satisfy the hunger of the
soul. But suppose the seeking man is told to join
the church and try to do better; or perhaps he is instructed
to engage in some worthy Cause; he may be asked to conform to
various rules. Or it’s possible that he may even
be greeted with some bruising treatment that hurts his
personality and wounds his pride such as: strong condemnation
for his conduct. He asked for Bread, but got
stones instead. He leaves the place bruised and
angry and resolves to stay away, if that’s all they have to
offer.
Next to bread, the most universal food is
fish. The meal prepared by our resurrected Lord
for the weary disciples was bread and fish.
Suppose the disciples discovered a serpent
instead! In the Bible, serpents invariably were
poisonous. Always they were shunned.
The fish and the serpent were at opposite ends of
desirability. The fish was welcomed, but the
serpent was repugnant and dangerous. The fish
satisfied a need, but the serpent was a peril.
I
wonder how often people have come to satisfy their natural
cravings by asking for that which could be classified as fish,
and they are offered liquor instead. Liquor is
called a deadly serpent “whose end stingeth like an
adder.” Once bitten, the effects go on until they
are either delivered or die. Some people offer
drugs to compensate for spiritual hunger. Some
churches turn their evening services into bingo
gatherings. There, they seek satisfaction for
their spiritual needs, but gambling serpent is all they
receive. Or could it be possible that someone is seeking
to satisfy his cravings by asking for a fish, and instead we
place before him a sexy movie to stimulate the very thing he
is seeking to master. The result is comparable to
giving a serpent for it is destructive and painfully
inadequate to meet the need. Serpents are
disguised in many ways, but always deadly in their
effects. When people symbolically ask for a fish,
let us be sure we give them a legitimate satisfaction to
answer need. Food is food, but spoiled food is
poison. We would not give anyone a serpent,
but we could be giving something just as destructive and just
as harmful. Let us heed the
Master.
Let’s consider the egg as compared with
the scorpion. The egg is one of the most universal
foods in the world. It is a delicacy and a staple
in every land. But the egg must be fresh to be
relished. A bad egg or a rotten egg is very
abhorrent. A fresh egg set under a brooding hen or
in an incubator will soon lose its appeal to the
appetite. In fact, the inside of the egg will
become almost vile and repulsive. But wait!
Something is going on. There’s new life and hope
taking place in this corruption inside the prison walls of its
shell. In three weeks the shell begins to crack
and break and there emerges a brand new loveable fluffy chick
that is ready to begin a new life.
Many people
have lives like the egg. They started out fresh
and clean. Then the world surrounded them with
temptations that brought about loss of ideals and
character. The heart becomes as corrupt and
decomposed as the egg in the incubator. Inside
that heart there comes a longing for deliverance with the hope
of beginning again. It is said that within every
heart, there is a person seeking to be released---the person
you would like to be. That’s the whole lesson that
Jesus is trying to portray. There’s
hope. Inside every one of us there’s a longing to
break the prison we’re in and be free to start all over
again. That’s what is meant by being born
AGAIN.
Incredible as it may be to ask, do we
offer such prisoners of hope only a scorpion? A
woman has made a failure out of life and she is classed as one
of the “down and outs.” Where can she find hope
and recovery? She has heard of the church although she
is far from being acquainted with it. She dresses
in her best attire, makes herself as attractive as she can and
cautiously steals into the back row of the local house of
God. What does she hear? Does she
listen to something akin to the egg with its message of hope
for beginning again all fresh and new? Or does she
hear a tirade of condemnation on dress and frills.
Does she feel lashed by critical denunciation and stung by
censure or is the message offering an egg---hope of a new
life. Will she leave the church smarting with
recriminations and reproach for the castigation she heard, or
will she have a new lilt in her voice, a new spring in her
step and a new sparkle in her eyes as well as a new hope in
her soul. If all we offer is scorpion-like
disapproval, we may feel a righteous justification of
ourselves, but we will help no one back to God. We
will never make the gospel attractive as a place to be healed
and cleansed.
The background of these
alternatives is placed in the bold relief of the relationship
of unbelieving fathers catering to the normal requests of
their sons. No father, just on the human level,
would give his hungry son stones for bread, serpents for fish
or scorpions for an egg. It would be
inconceivable. Now Jesus caps it all by saying,
HOW MUCH MORE will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to
those that ask Him. “Jesus breaks every fetter.”
Admission is free---only believe and obey. It is
not a matter of how bad you are or how good you are, but of
how willing you are. Whosoever will, may
come. God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son that WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH on Him shall have
ever-lasting LIFE. Those who come to Christ and
accept Him have discovered the land of beginning
again---except a man be born again. Jesus Christ
offers you satisfaction for your spiritual hunger and thirst,
and the HOPE of the life that now is as well as the life to
come. He offers the abundant life, and eternal
life.
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