The Reasons of Unanswered Prayer

This message is an extension of my earlier message, "The Problem of Unanswered Prayer".


There are many promises of God regarding answered prayer. Here are some of them:


Jesus said, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes" (Mark 9:23, NKJV),


Jesus said, "Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven" (Matt. 18:18, 19).


Jesus said, "And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive" (Matt. 21:22).


Jesus said, "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you" (John 15:7).


The above are not only just some statements of promises in the Bible, but they are the promises of our Lord Jesus Himself. Many believers might argue that they have fulfilled all the conditions for answered prayers and yet, not many of their prayers are answered. They believed; they agreed concerning what they asked for; they obeyed His Words, but they went on their way disappointed! Why?


The reason is, we cannot take Jesus' sayings out of context. We have to look elsewhere in the Gospels other conditions for answered prayer. It is extremely dangerous to take phrases or statements, albeit the sayings of Jesus, out of context, and set up doctrines around them. I am confident, when we all meet in heaven, there will be no need for contradictory doctrines. For there we will finally see truth, not doctrine. At this time, living on earth, let us look at the inherent danger in restricting God to the confines of our doctrines. Many believers, by demanding that the above promises be absolute and universal, make a sham and mockery of the logic with which God always works. Let us discuss the reasons why many of our prayers are left unanswered.


The question of Christian maturity


God is never unreasonable. He is never irrational. And above all, He is never illogical. The problem is with us. Look at it this way - If God gave every individual believer, young or old, every answer to every prayer that might pop up in his head, the world would be filled almost immediately with anarchy, chaos, and confusion. Therefore even though we stand on every one of the promises of God, God must, in our best interest, see to it that some of our prayers are not answered.
The age, maturity in Christ, basic intelligence, and wisdom of the believer making a request of God are important factors in whether or not God can honor a petition. Some make the statement that God can do anything. Certainly this is true within the context of God's being all-powerful. But He cannot and will not always do anything, because anything can sometimes be harmful to the children He loves and wants to protect. His ability to answer prayer not only hinges on His abilities, but also on our abilities, situations, and relationship with Him.


Without elaborating, a moment of thought will produce a broad collection of ridiculous prayers that God would find impossible to answer. You can see, therefore, where maturity and rationality of desire enter most powerfully into the question of whether or not we are leaving God room in which to answer our prayers.


The question of selfishness


There are times when we go before God in fits of resentment, stamping our feet and demanding God to do something about this or that situation. It never enters our minds that if He did answer those prayers, it might cause harm to someone else. All too often our only thought is, "How does this factor influence my particular situation?" God, on the other hand, must always take the broad view. He can never, in His concern with one individual, lose sight of mankind as a whole. If God were bound to answer every prayer brought before Him, He would not remain the Supreme Being for very long, because we all have the tendency of dictatorship.


The question of pride


The next factor entering into our relationship with God in the area of prayer is pride. The thought of the Almighty God could listen to us and actually hand over to us the things that we asked for can make us feel proud. How easy it is to feel there is something deserving and inherently moral with ourselves. How simple to begin to see answered prayer as an indication of worthiness within us!


The Scripture says that God hears us when we humble ourselves (2 Chron. 7:14). Furthermore, Solomon said, "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18). Therefore we must be particularly watchful that we never allow a blessing from God to become the sourse of our downfall. If there is a danger of this, God has no other choice but to deny us our petition.


In my opinion, many believers do not have their prayers answered simply because God has answered prayers for them in the past and they allowed these prayer answers to swell them up spiritually to where they thought it was some inherent merit within themselves. We must always remember that it is by God's grace our prayers are answered.


The question of time factor


Every living person is confined to a time factor. There are twenty-four hours and not twenty-five; twelve months and not thirteen. And God has to consider the time factor He created to determine whether a specific prayer request will be honored or not.


For instance, if a person should come late to salvation and then when feeble and infirm in body, feel a burden to go and serve in the foreign missions. At the same time his fellow Church members also keep on encouraging and persuading him to go because they feel it is a good thing for him to do. And so they commit their prayers to the Lord. Chances are that God would dissuade this party from his cherished goal by denying the honest, well-motivated prayers of the dedicated individual and his friends.


Some might argue with me on this point. They might point out some elderly and feeble missionary who is still doing an effective job for the Lord. I agree with them. The difference is, though, this individual has been in the mission field for years! He is not a novice confronted with all the normal trials and problems, plus the added burden of too advanced in years.


The question of mountain-moving faith


Jesus said, "For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says" (Mark 11:23, NKJV).


"Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray believe that you receive them, and you will have them" (Mark 11:24).


Here are some statements of truth:


1. In the context of the above two verses of Scripture Jesus was speaking to His disciples concerning their need to have "faith in God" (Verse 22). He used the removing of the mountain before them as an illustration of exercising the "faith in God". Therefore the mountain He referred to was not the physical mountain.


2. The "mountain" that Jesus referred to is a mountain of doubt, bitterness, fear, unbelief, wrath, lust, envy, jealousy and the like.


3. Before we can aspire to the great promise of Verse 24, we must first remove the negative mountains within our lives!


4. In Verse 23 Jesus did not say, "If I speak to this mountain," or "If an angel speaks to this mountain," He said, "Whoever says to this mountain". It is our responsibility and initiative to remove the mountain hindering our Christian walk.


Very often we only want the promise of Mark 11:24. Unfortunately, in our mad scramble to get to Mark 11:24, we completely ignore Mark 11:23. And the two verses go together. Jesus gave them both as one thought. It was the Bible translators who broke them into two separate verses.


So next time you pray and claim the promises (healing, miracles, financial blessing etc.) in Mark 11:24 and your prayer is not answered the problem does not lie at the focal point of your thinking. It lies back at the point where you are standing. The frustration of God's desire to answer our prayer is not created at God's end. It is created at our end! Only after we start moving the mountains hindering the fulfillment of Mark 11:24 can the Lord start doing His part and giving us a real mountain-moving demonstration of active faith.


The question of principle versus formula


The Christian Church is full of faith teachers who preach the promises of God in answering all the prayers of the congregation of believers. Thrilling and exciting as all this is, Pastors and Church leaders must be aware that many believers are being led astray by being taught a formula before they understand the principle underlying that formula. And a formula without a principle can be as dangerous as a loaded gun in the hands of a child!


A common faith message goes like this - "It is really very simple. If you have faith, the Lord will give you exactly what you profess with your mouth." Now, in all honesty there is a grain of truth in this statement, but a "grain" of truth misused can be a dangerous as an outright lie.


The truth of the matter is, we can open the door to errors by carelessly repeating something over and over again. To them this is confession of God's Word and by confession, things they want are going to be hatched into reality. This is the "faith" formula many believers learned and used. You will hear common statements like - "By faith, I will be a millionaire", "By faith, I am going to get a better job", "By faith, I am going to be healed". This faith formula is nothing more than wishful thinking.


Believers need to understand that God is not a Santa Claus. And there are no spiritual slot machines. And finally, going around blindly repeating some wish is not going to bring it about. What these misguided faith teachers are really doing is setting the stage for a chronic case of frustration.


There is a story about a divored man wanted God to change the heart of his estranged wife and force her to do exactly what he wanted her to do. Obviously, this is a clear case of spiritual manipulation and God will not answer his prayer. God will never violate a person's free will. And God's whole relationship with man is built on the principle of man's right to do whatever he chooses to do.


The question of indiscriminate testimonies


It is a common practice in Charismatic Churches to invite members to come forward to give testimonies on what God has blessed them recently. I believe testifying is a good, moral, spiritually uplifting practice. And we should give God the glory and the credit when He goes out of His way to bless us with answered prayer.


Sound good? It certainly seems to be a moral position and one cannot be faulted. But what does Scripture say about it? If we search the Scripture, we will find that there are many times (e.g. Matt. 8:4; 9:30; 17:9) when Jesus specifically admonished the disciples and others not to give testimony regarding something that happened. Therefore it would appear that once again we are confronted with a situation in which timing is as important as action.


How can witnessing and testimonies be harmful? In many ways. For example, we do not know the status of our neighbor's spiritual temperature on any given moment. We know we have our mountaintops and our valleys. But we do not know the situation of the one sitting next to us in a Church meeting. The very day the Lord has brought us out of the wilderness may be the day when he is being refined by the trials of life. Therefore, when we stand up, indiscriminately and launch into a glowing account of how much God loves us and demonstrates it by showering us with gifts and blessings, we could be plunging our neighbor into the depths of despondency.


Certainly the right thing to do is to be ready to give your testimony. But wait until the Holy Spirit leads you to give that testimony. Indisciminate testifying can be as wrong in the sight of the Lord as refusing to testify. As we are told in Ecclesiastes, there is a time, a season, and a place for almost everything - time to testify God's goodness included. That is why it is so important to attune our spiritual ear to the promptings of God's Spirit.


Conclusion


The subject of unanswered prayer is so vast and so wide-range that it is beyond the scope of this message to write more. In fact what I have shared is only a little more than scratching the surface. I do hope, though, this discussion will yield some food for thought and give some solace perhaps to those who might think they have ingrained qualities that make them unacceptable to God when they come before Him in prayer.


Why do we sometimes pray and see amazing, miraculous healings? And then another time we pray just as fervently, just as honestly, just as much faith, and nothing happens? I don't know and I don't think anyone knows. Only God knows.


James said, "You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, ..." (James 4:3).


Ultimately, I believe, if we could see things with the wisdom of God's eyes, the above verse would cover every case of unanswered prayer.