(Today’s post on prayer is an article I wrote a long time ago, but which is still relevant.*)
Johnny knelt by his bed. “God bless mummy and daddy, grandma and grandpa, aunt Jenny, and I guess You’d better bless my sister, too,” he rattled off the list.
Then he closed his eyes tight, and pressed his hands together hard. “And please, God,” he pleaded with all the intensity he could muster, “make Paris the capital of Italy before Teacher marks my geography exam!”
I was reminded of Johnny some years ago when I drove past a church with a For Sale sign at the front. Without even thinking, I prayed “Lord, let it be for sale because they have grown too big for the building, and not because they have shrunk and are closing down.”
As soon as I said the words, I realised how foolish they were.
I had been taught that God always answers prayer. Sometimes He says yes, sometimes no and sometimes wait. It was a comforting thought, and one I had preached on several times.
Unfortunately, as I matured in God, I learned that it just isn’t true! Whether we like it or not, there are some prayers which God will not, indeed cannot, answer.
PRAYERS PRAYED IN SIN AND REBELLION
Isaiah 59:1-2 tells us, “the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.”
Access to the ear of God is not the common right of humanity, but a privilege extended by the King of kings to those who are in covenant relationship with Him.
He is not a dog, to come when we whistle, nor a vending machine which must give up the goods if only we press the right button!
Rather, He is the Lord of all, who deals with His people solely out of His grace, and not because of any antecedent obligation on His part.
Those who scorn His Lordship, flout His laws, and spurn His grace can hardly expect to have Him do their bidding when they call.
Many people disregard God all their lives. Then, when they need something, they pray. When no results are forthcoming, they cry, “There is no God! He didn’t answer my prayer!”
What presumption! Why should God answer prayers offered in such a state? For Him to do so would be to make man God, and reduce Himself to the level of man’s servant.
PRAYERS PRAYED CONTRARY TO GOD’S WILL
There is an interesting story in 2 Chronicles 18 where Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, had entered an unholy alliance with Ahab, the king of Israel, and together they planned to attack Ramoth Gilead.
Having received favourable replies from all of Ahab’s false prophets, Jehoshaphat insisted that they inquire of a prophet of the Lord. Ahab replied that there was still one man, Micaiah, son of Imlah, “But I hate him, because he never prophesies anything good about me, but always bad” (verse 7).
Micaiah was duly summoned, and advised to tell Ahab what he wanted to hear. He dismissed this, declaring boldly that he would say only what the Lord gave him.
Nevertheless, when he confronted Ahab he did initially tell him what he wanted to hear: “Attack and be victorious!”
The ruse worked, for Ahab responded, “How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord!”
Unrighteous Ahab knew that this pleasing word was not from God. He knew before Micaiah spoke what the Lord was going to say. However, when Micaiah gave him God’s true message, he still rejected it!
Many people know what God has said in His Word on certain issues, yet they still pray contrary to that Word, in the vain hope that God will consider their case so special that He will make an exception.
It won’t happen!
Many have heard from God for their own lives, yet they pray contrary to the will He has thus revealed. Sorry, it won’t work! God has a plan for your life. You can either go with it, or rebel against it, but God will not change His plan.
PRAYERS PRAYED FROM WRONG MOTIVES.
James warns us, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend it all on your pleasures.” (4:3)
Unfortunately, “faith” teaching has told people that they can have anything they set their minds on, if they just believe enough. You want a Mercedes, fine, just “name it and claim it” or “blab it and grab it” and it will be yours.
God, however, looks into our hearts at the motive for such a request. Do you want a Mercedes to be a nice pillow for your ego, your pride – to put you one rung above the neighbours?
Don’t expect God to give it to you. Pride is sin, and for God to give you something to feed that pride would make Him an accessory to your sin.
PRAYERS WHICH ARE PRAYED TOO LATE
This brings me to my own foolish prayer, and to Johnny’s frantic plea for the relocation of Paris. Such prayers God cannot answer: they have been prayed too late. Little Johnny should have been praying (not to mention studying) before the exam, not after, and the time to pray for a church is long before it closes its doors.
In Jeremiah we find the chilling words, “Do not pray for this people, nor offer any plea or petition for them, because I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their distress” (11:14).
Do not pray! What an awesome command!
As an intercessor, only once has God forbidden me to pray for a particular person. That was some years ago, but even now I shudder to think about it, for when God says “don’t pray” it means that person or situation has gone beyond the limits of His grace, and that judgement is inevitable. It is too late.
Some time ago in a nursing home I saw a framed poem called “Give Them the Flowers Now”. It spoke of how many elderly people receive floral tributes after their death, although they have not received visits or even letters – let alone flowers – for many years before their death. It urged the reader to give them the flowers now while they can appreciate them, for after they have died it is too late.
The same applies to prayer. Ten minutes after Uncle Fred dies is too late to pray for him to come to Jesus. Pray for him now, while there is time. God dwells in eternity, but He answers our prayers only in the time frame in which we live.
PRAYERS WHICH ARE NOT PRAYED
Awesome as it is to us, God has granted man free will, and acts in the affairs of man accordingly.
Thus we find in Ezekiel the sorrowful cry from God’s heart, “I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land so that I would not have to destroy it, but I found none. So I will pour out My wrath on them, and consume them with my fiery anger, bringing down on their heads all they have done” (Ezekiel 22:30-31).
If ever our world stood in need of intercessors, of men and women to stand in the gap, it is today.
Our nations are torn apart with corruption from the highest levels of society to the lowest; drugs, immorality and occultism are destroying young and old alike; we bear the bloodguilt of millions of aborted children; “Jesus” and “Christ” are to many nothing more than obscenities. Our world needs God.
We, the church of the living God, must get our act together. We must deal with sin in our lives so that we can bring our prayers before the Throne of Grace. We must pray, in accordance with the will of God and from the purest of motives, for our world. We must pray now, before it is to late. We must pray.
(* Adapted from an article which first appeared in On Being , August 1992, under the author’s then name of Lynn Cox.)