J. Oswald Sanders
Post-Mortem on Unanswered Prayer
Because you ask with wrong motives (James 4:3)
Having considered some of the most important conditions of answered prayer, we come face to face, with the fact that too many of our prayers go unanswered. This is a melancholy admission in view of the multiplicity of the promises God has made to the praying soul.
When a prudent businessman discovers that his business is running at a loss, he takes stock, draws up a balance sheet, discovers why he has made no profit, and takes remedial steps. Shall we be less prudent in our spiritual accounting? Have we ever sat down and honestly faced this question? Do we just accept the failure of some prayers fatalistically? Do we piously say, “Perhaps it was not God’s will after all?” Or do we ask honest questions:
Am I sure my request was in harmony with God’s will?
Did I really pray making use of Jesus’ name?
Did I pray the prayer of faith and really except the answer?
Was I praying from selfish motives?
Have I been importunate?
Did I depend on the Holy Spirit in my praying?
I am certain that God is more honored when we honestly face and confess our failures in prayer than when we piously ignore them. So let us conduct a post-mortem, search out the causes, and remedy them. When we do this sincerely, we will experience an upgrading in the quality of our prayer life. Behind every unanswered prayer there is a reason, which we must discover for ourselves.
The apostle James asserts that the basic reason for every unanswered prayer is that in some way we have asked wrongly. “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives” (James 4:3). There are other reasons for non-answered prayer as well, and it is n ow our objective to examine these potential causes of failure.
POSSIBLE REASONS FOR FAILURE IN PRAYER
Here are some possible explanations for failure in prayer.
- Perhaps our faith has been resting on a wrong basis. Could it be that we have been unconsciously substituting faith in prayer for faith in God? Have we been expecting our prayer to give the answer? Think this through carefully. We are nowhere in Scripture exhorted to put our faith in prayer, but we are commanded, “Have faith in God” (Mark 11:22). If our faith is directed toward and reposes in the God to whom we pray, our faith will not stumble even if He does not exactly do what we may ask. In spite of the popular motto, it is not prayer that changes things, but God who changes things when we conform to His laws for answered prayer.
Or could it be that we have been unconsciously substituting faith in our faith for faith in God? This may sound trite, but it is a very real possibility. When we say, “My faith is so small; I can’t believe that God will do it,” are we not admitting that we are depending on the quality of our faith rather than resting on the faithful God for the answer?
It is true that “without faith it is impossible to please Him (Heb 11:6), but faith is like eyesight. Like eyesight, faith does not exist apart from the object on which it is focused. Have you ever seen eyesight? There is no such thing as faith in the abstract. I am to focus my faith on God, and not to have faith in my faith.
Or could it be that I have been relying on my earnestness and importunity in prayer to bring the answer, instead of relying on God Himself? - There may be in our hearts a secret sympathy with sin. If this is the case, our prayers will be effectually short-circuited, and our prayer life sabotaged.
In this connection, no statement could be more explicit than Psalm 66:18: “If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear.” It is important to notice that the word “regard” does not merely mean to “look on,” but to “hold on to, cling to.”
The psalmist was enunciating a clear spiritual principle here. He claimed that he was not holding on to sin in his heart, and so could testify, “But certainly God has heard; He has given heed to the voice of my prayer” (Psalm 66:19). If we are to expect an answer to our prayers, we must make a clean break with sin. - Perhaps the motive behind our prayers is not pure. “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures” (James 4:3).
God nowhere binds Himself to answer self-centered or selfish prayers. While He promises to meet all our genuine needs, He does not undertake to gratify all our selfish desires. In prayer for temporal things, we should carefully examine our motivation and ask, “Is this petition for God’s glory, for my good, and for the good of others, or is it merely to gratify my own selfish desires?” - Instead of having confidence in approaching God, we may be being held back by a condemning heart. John the apostle assured those to whom he was writing that whatever condemns us in our conscience hinders prayer. Until known sin is judged and renounced, we pray and plead in vain. “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him (1 John 3:21-22).
If we know of some reason our conscience condemns us, it is for us to deal with it and do all in our power to put it right with God and man. Until we do, we will endeavor in vain to pray the prayer of faith. More often than not this is why we are unable to exercise appropriating faith when we pray.
What are we to do if some subtle sense of guilt and condemnation descends on our spirits? We examine our hearts, but can assign no reason for the distress. It is a nameless and ill-defined depression of the spirit, a vague malaise that prevents the soul from rising to God in the prayer of faith. How is this condition to be met?
First, let us sincerely ask God to reveal to us if there is some real but unrecognized sin that lies at the root of this sense of condemnation. If He reveals something to us, let us put it right at the first opportunity. Confidence toward God will thus be restored, and our prayers will receive their answers.
But should there be no such revelation of sin, we are justified in concluding that the obscuring cloud originates in enemy territory. Many have found it helpful to pray in such circumstances, “Lord, if this sense of condemnation comes from Your Spirit’s conviction, make my sin clear to me and I shall confess and put it right. But if it comes from Satan, then on the grounds of Calvary’s victory, I refuse and reject it.”
This attitude of acceptance of the divine dealing but rejection of the satanic intrusion has often brought deliverance and renewed freedom in prayer, for it is true that “if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God.” - We may be entertaining a bitter or unforgiving spirit. Jesus handled this possibility very faithfully. “I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they shall be granted you. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your transgressions” (Mark 11:24-25, italics added).
These sobering words should convince us of the folly of expecting an answer to our prayers when we are cherishing unforgiving spirits. Because I have been forgiven, I must forgive. If I fail to do so, I will be unable to pray with assurance of an answer.
Dr. H. A. Ironside told of a man who gave this testimony:
For years I prayed for the conversion of an erring son, but all the time he seemed to go from bad to worse. During those years I had a bitter feeling in my heart towards a brother who, I felt, had grievously wronged me. I insisted upon reparation which he refused to make. Feeling my cause was just, I held this against him, and would not overlook it.
At last I realized that this was hindering prayer, I judged it before God and freely forgave, O the liberty as I then turned to God about my son! Soon I heard with joy of his conversion. Though far from home, he was brought under the power of the gospel and led to Christ. An unforgiving spirit explains why thousands of petitions go apparently unheeded.1 - Perhaps all is not right in the marital relationship. This possibility is plainly envisaged in 1 Peter 3:1-7, a passage that treats the relationship that should exist between husband and wife, and the duties they owe to one another. The paragraph begins, “You wives, be submissive to your own husbands,” and concludes, “You husbands likewise, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel, since she is a woman; and grant her honor as a fellow-heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered” (italics added).
When husband and wife are one in heart and purpose, mutually recognizing the place assigned to each in Scripture and practicing the law of love, prayer is easy and confident. But when there is a lack of that mutuality, when there is selfishness in the intimate things of the marriage relationship, the prayer life of the couple becomes the first casualty. There may be a form of prayer maintained, but joy and spontaneity will depart and answers will be few.
When a growing family has daily evidence of such a lack of harmony and sympathy between its parents, that need can prove in itself a tragic hindrance to the answer of parental prayers. On the other hand, when the family has daily evidence of mutual and sacrificial love, the way is open for the Spirit to work and answer the prayers of the parents. - Our prayers are sometimes the outlet for unbelief and despair rather than the outpouring of faith. A fundamental prayer-principle is given in Hebrews 11:6. Its absoluteness is impressive. “Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”
It is true that God invites us to pour out our hearts before Him and to unload our burdens at His feet. But we are to come to Him in the confidence of faith, not in the numbness of despair. Our God loves to be trusted. “Let him ask in faith without any doubting,” exhorts James, “for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord” (James 1:6-7).
One characteristic of a wave is that it never stays in the same place for two seconds. So it is with the unstable, double-souled, unbelieving man, says James (v 8). Such a man puts his burden or problem in God’s hands one minute and takes it back again the next, only to repeat the futile process. He believes one minute and doubts the next.
The psalmist, confident in the trustworthiness of his God, has a satisfying prescription for such a person: “Commit [and leave committed] your way to the LORD, trust also [and keep on trusting] in Him, and He will do it … Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him” (Psalm 37:5, 7). - Perhaps satanic resistance preventing the answer to our prayers from reaching us must be dealt with. This was the experience of the prophet Daniel as he recorded it in Daniel 10:12-13:
Then He said to me, “Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for twenty-one days; then behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left there with the kings of Persia.
The messenger whom God had dispatched in answer to Daniel’s prayers was detained on the way for three weeks, and it was only through the help of Michael, the archangel, that there had been a successful completion of his mission.
We should recognize that unseen forces rule the world. In this instance there was conflict between the spiritual forces behind the kings of Persia and the messengers from God. This is an area of truth of which we know little, but it does throw light on the mystery of unanswered prayer.
The answer to Daniel’s prayer began in the heavenly sphere before it was evident on earth (v 12). Satan, as always, opposed the purpose of God, but he did not succeed. Daniel was mystified by God’s delay in answering his prayers, and it was only after he had persevered in prayer that he learned the real reason. It was not that his prayers had not been heard, but that they had triggered a conflict in the heavenly realm. That conflict was brought to a successful conclusion only by the intervention of God. We little know what supernatural forces are unleashed when we pray the prayer of faith.
Ah dearest Lord! I cannot pray,
My fancy is not free;
Unmannerly distractions come,
And force my thoughts from Thee.
……………………………………………………………………..
My very flesh has restless fits;
My changeful limbs conspire
With all these phantoms of the mind
My inner self to live.
I cannot pray; yet Lord! Thou knowest
The pain it is to me
To have my vainly struggling thoughts
Thus torn away from Thee.
……………………………………………………………………..
Yet Thou art oft most present, Lord!
In weak distracted prayer:
A sinner out of heart with self
Most often finds Thee there.
………………………………………………………………………
My Savior! why should I complain
And why fear aught but sin?
Distractions are but outward things;
Thy peace dwells far within. F.W. FABER
PRAYER
Blessed Lord, Thy words are faithful and true. It must be because I pray amiss that my experience of answered prayer is not clearer. It must be because I live too little in the Spirit that my prayer is too little in the Spirit, and that the power for the prayer of faith is wanting. Lord, teach me to pray! Lord Jesus, I trust Thee for it; teach me to pray in faith. ANDREW MURRAY
QUESTIONS
- God sometimes answers prayers by giving something other than what was prayed for. Is this a valid proposition?
- How can we tell whether non-answer of our prayer is a delay or a denial?
Note
H. A. Ironside, in Serving and Waiting, March 1930, p 385
warriorprincess4yeshua.blog 