by Stanley M. Horton
We have seen in previous chapters that Jesus prayed, the apostles prayed, and that the Bible everywhere expects God’s people to pray. Jesus said, “When you pray …,” not “if you pray.…” Not only did He expect us to pray, He commanded us to pray (Matt. 5:44; 9:38; Luke 21:36; John 16:24) and taught His disciples “that they should always pray and not give up” (Luke 18:1). The whole Bible shows we also are to “pray continually” (1 Thess. 5:17), that is, keep in an attitude of prayer, ready for spiritual communication. These exhortations are necessary because we have a natural resistance to prayer.
As has been pointed out early in this book, daily communication with God (“in the cool of the day”) was the privilege and joy of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:8). But when Satan suggested that by disobedience and self-assertion they could be like God, they chose to eat of the forbidden fruit, and sin entered the world. Sin raised a barrier between human beings and God. When Adam and Eve heard the voice of God they ran and hid among the trees and bushes of the Garden. They took God off the throne and put self on the throne. Consequently, sin brought a resistance to prayer.
As time went on, self-exaltation refused to recognize the greatness of God and failed to give Him the place He deserves. People wanted to make a name for themselves (Gen. 11:4). They denied their need for God and wanted to control their own future. They wanted glory for themselves that really belonged to God. This left them with “a natural dislike for prayer.”1
The Problem of Human Reasoning
Resistance to prayer also shows up in objections raised by human reasoning. Some objections come from believers who are troubled by questions that arise from adverse circumstances or even from their reading of the Scriptures. The prophet Habakkuk had questions. He could not reconcile what he saw around him with what he believed was the character of God. But God did not condemn him for having questions. Habakkuk did the right thing when he brought his questions to God. The Bereans undoubtedly had questions when Paul first preached the gospel to them. But they did the right thing when they “examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11).
Some objections come from unbelievers who reject the Bible and depend on their own deductions. Human philosophy that ignores the facts of biblical revelation most often rejects the idea of a personal God who is supreme. Oriental philosophers thought of an impersonal pantheism, everything as a part of God. They sometimes spoke of a “great soul” of the universe, the ultimate ground of all being, which they called Brahma (or Brahman) or atman (as the supreme universal self). However, they reasoned that no one could say with certainty that this “great soul” does or does not exist. Their whole outlook is one of pessimism.2 More recent western philosophers such as Paul Tillich also make God a “ground of being” and “ground of personality.”3 But such a god has no separate being apart from the material universe and is not a person we can communicate with. Nor does it feel, speak, or have purpose or plan. To accept such an idea of God is to make prayer as communication impossible and to make worship a mental exercise, giving us nothing more than psychological illusions of peace.
Actually the reasoning of these philosophers have never satisfied the common people. Oriental religions soon added many gods. Temples in India often have hundreds of shrines dedicated to different gods and goddesses. Western philosophies have fared no better. Many of them have tried to break down people’s confidence in the true God. Many promote atheism. But the result has been that millions have turned to the occult, to fortune-telling, to astrology, and even to Satan worship. On the other hand, the response to the gospel in Africa, Eastern Europe, and many other parts of the world shows that these philosophies and false religions do not satisfy. People will turn to the true God when Christ is presented and they recognize the kind of God He has revealed. Then they will pray.
Unfortunately there are those who claim to believe in a personal God but treat Him as if He were impersonal. Some treat Him as if he were a slot machine, needing only the right coin (that is, the right words) to make Him deliver the answer. They have no thought of God’s desire for obedience, love, faithfulness, and devoted service. As Peter Baelz put it, “He would be on a par with the impersonal world which is the object of man’s mastery and manipulation. Prayer would no longer be communion, but a piece of applied science.… If their question ‘What is the use of prayer’ means only, ‘Does it produce the goods?’ the questioner has abandoned the sphere of religion for that of the marketplace.”4 The God revealed in the Bible loves us in a personal way. He is more concerned about giving the answer He sees we need than in gratifying our selfish desires and whims.
The Problem of God’s Character
The very greatness of God sometimes raises another objection or question with respect to prayer. It is hard for the human mind to grasp the vastness of the universe with its millions of galaxies, each with billions of stars (and we’re not even sure astronomers have seen the extent of it yet). God is certainly greater than the universe He created.
Then how could such a great God be concerned over people on a little planet revolving around a minor star in one of the lesser galaxies?
Our human thinking may not comprehend it, but the Bible shows that God has not only a concern for each of us, but for even the small things and the apparently insignificant events—the hairs of one’s head, the fall of a sparrow (Matt. 10:29–30). Actually, between the awesome galaxies on the one hand and the subatomic particles on the other, human beings are about in the middle. In God’s infinite greatness and majesty He can deal with the smallest particle as easily as with the largest galaxy. Is it any wonder that even when a million people are crying out to Him, He is so infinite that He can deal with all of us as if each of us were the only one praying?
A related question is, How can God deal with the confusion of multitudes of prayers that come up to Him asking for contradictory things? While some are praying for rain to save the crops, others are praying for dry weather to enhance a parade. Two things should be kept in mind here: Jesus said, “He [our Father in heaven] causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous” (Matt. 5:45). That is, God normally sends rain on the righteous, who may be praying, and on the unrighteous, who probably are not praying. Just as we must accept the seasons, which God has placed in the natural order of things (Gen. 8:22), so we must normally accept what takes place in connection with the seasons, for God set them in motion.
On the other hand, James 5:17–18 reminds us, “Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.” However, it must be pointed out that Elijah’s prayers were not for his personal gain or pleasure. Queen Jezebel was trying to root out the worship of the Lord and make the Baal of Tyre the national god of Israel; God used Elijah to bring the people to a decision against her. Elijah’s prayers were the expression of his commitment to the Lord and His will.
Notice also that Elijah did not tell God how to send the fire from heaven or the rain that came afterward. He just expressed his confidence in God, and let Him do it. C. S. Lewis talks of what he called a “very silly sort of prayer” where someone prays for a sick person and gives God the diagnosis and tells Him just what He should do to make the person well. Others try to tell God just what to do in the world to bring peace.5 We must recognize that God knows what is needed, but He wants us to come to Him in prayer and confess our need of Him.
When there are conflicts of human interest we can trust our faithful God, who sees all that is involved, to do what is best. But prayer is not an escape mechanism.6 We have our part to do also. The farmer who prays for rain must also plow, plant, cultivate, and harvest. The student who prays for God’s help in his examinations must also study. The football team that prays to win must also pray that God will help them to develop their skills and enable them to play in a manner that will show their Christian character and witness.7
Then, because God sees beyond what we can see, He will sometimes not answer our request because what we ask for might actually keep us from receiving a better answer to our needs or desires. St. Augustine as a youth was a follower of Manichaeism, a syncretistic cult that originated in Persia. He also lived a rather immoral life. When he planned to go to Rome, his mother, the godly Monica, was afraid he would fall to worse temptations there and prayed that God would not let him go. He went anyway. Then he went to Milan where Ambrose8 influenced him and where in a garden he heard a voice saying, “Take and read.” He understood that the Bible was meant. The result was his conversion to Christ. In this way Monica’s real desire was granted even though the specific prayer she had prayed was not.9
We are thankful that God does see and know beyond what we can see and know. He also has all power and nothing is impossible for Him (Gen. 18:14; Jer. 32:17; Matt. 19:26; Luke 18:27); He is sovereign.
But we must not carry the idea of His sovereignty beyond what the Scripture teaches. On the basis of their view of God’s sovereignty, Muslim philosophers decided that every thought, action, or event is the direct act of God.
St. Augustine and John Calvin did not go that far, but by their human reasoning they proposed that since God is sovereign, He has everything under control, and since He knows everything, everything must be predestined in advance. This led to the idea that those predestined to be lost cannot be saved, and those predestined to be saved cannot be lost. This made the warnings of Scripture (see John 15:6; Heb. 2:1, 3; 6:4–6; 10:26–29) meaningless.
Then some carried the idea of God’s sovereignty further and questioned the validity of prayer. They reasoned that if God has everything under control and knows the future, what difference can prayer make? What is the use of praying? But that is a fatalism that is not taught in the Bible.
The real problem with such ideas and questions is that they come from a wrong view of the sovereignty of God. Proverbs 16:32 tells us, “Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.” In other words, it is better for us who are in the image of God to control ourselves and limit our self-expression for the sake of others than it is to show our power. The whole Bible shows God is not only sovereign, He is sovereign over himself; He is able to control and limit himself. If God were not able to do this, then He too would be just a victim of fate. That He has this ability was shown in a most meaningful way when Jesus, God the Son, not only limited himself but humbled himself and took “the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Phil. 2:7–8).
When God created Adam and Eve He limited himself by giving them the ability of choice. The very presence of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden shows that. God could have programmed us so that we would always do the right thing—but we would have been puppets, machines, automatons. He wanted us to be freely responsive to His love and care. Love must be freely given or it is not love. Similarly, salvation is a gift (Eph. 2:8) freely given and must be freely received.
God has not given us freedom in all areas, however. We can choose to eat a salad instead of a dessert, but we cannot chose to stop eating altogether and still live. We can choose to accept God’s way of salvation through Jesus Christ or we can choose to reject it, but we cannot choose some other supposed savior or way of salvation and make it to heaven. That option is not open to us (cf. Acts 4:12). Nor is a one-time choice to follow Christ enough. We must continue to make daily choices and keep on following Him (see Luke 9:23). For individually we are not predestined to do so.10 What is predestined is the way of salvation and the fact that the Church is an elect, or chosen, body.11 We do not have to glorify ourselves. If we just follow along with Jesus, God will glorify us when He comes. Thus, there are natural limitations to our prayers: “We don’t pray about eclipses”12—we cannot pray for the earth to become flat. And there are spiritual limitations—we cannot pray for God to save people by some other means than through faith in Jesus (Acts 4:12).
When we do believe in Jesus we enter into a fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3). The very word “fellowship” includes the idea of partnership. God has given us a part. We must come to Him, and we must come in faith (Heb. 11:6). There is much biblical evidence that God often waits to act until we do our part. We can see this in the ministry of Jesus. When He came to Nazareth “He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith” (Mark 6:5–6). Apparently they did not show faith by asking or seeking what they needed. When Jesus walked on the water and said, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid,” only Peter said, “Tell me to come to you on the water.” All the disciples could have walked on the water just as easily, but only Peter asked.13 Many other examples could be given both from Scripture and experience that God works when people asks.
God has also chosen that believers should be His agents, His servants, in the spread of the gospel and the building of Christ’s Church, both spiritually and in numbers. God still deserves all the glory. As the apostle Paul said, “What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow” (1 Cor. 3:5–6). This does not mean that what we do is not important. “The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers” (1 Cor. 3:8–9). We are also “Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us” (2 Cor. 5:20). What a privilege! What a responsibility! In giving us this privilege and responsibility God has chosen to make prayer the means of communication and the means by which we express our faith. Part of His plan is that prayer should have a place and an influence.14 Jesus said, “Ask the Lord of the harvest … to send out workers into his harvest field” (Luke 10:2). He wants us all to be “God’s fellow workers”; and that means He works with us and we work with Him. Prayer is the God-chosen means to make this possible.
God’s holiness also causes some to wonder how One who is supremely holy can enter into a world so full of sin and answer the prayers of imperfect people such as we are. The Gospel of John gives a simple answer. Jesus, the Living Word who was and is God (John 1:1), was the One through whom God the Father made all things. “In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it” (John 1:4–5). He is the Light of the World (John 8:12). Just as light is able to shine into darkness without having the darkness contaminate the light, so the Holy God comes into a sinful world without it affecting Him at all. In fact, He has always delighted to do so (see Isa. 57:15).
Many human philosophers take a mechanistic view of the universe. They suppose that all things are controlled by the laws of nature, and that these laws cannot be changed or broken. Some go as far as to believe that nothing exists but matter and energy and their laws. In this way, they attempt to rule out both God and prayer. Others suppose that we can use these laws for our benefit and that science will solve all our problems, provide all the answers, and give us hope for the future. This scientism is a false hope, however. Scientific advance has created as many problems as it has blessings. Worse yet, evil people take advantage of even the good things and use them for evil purposes. Science cannot deal with sin. All sin has “become utterly sinful” (Rom. 7:13). Only the blood of Jesus can cleanse it.
Actually there are many things that science cannot deal with. For example, science cannot deal with qualities. It has to treat them in terms of quantities: color in terms of light waves, sound in terms of sound waves. However, although someone born blind can understand all the physics and mathematics of light waves, that does not mean such an individual has any idea of what the northern lights, a red tide, or a Monarch butterfly’s wing looks like. A person born deaf can understand all the physics and mathematics of sound waves, but without any understanding of what a symphony or a congregation praising God in unison sounds like. Nor can science deal with anything unique. It has to classify everything by statistical methods, so it can deal only with a repeatable phenomenon. It cannot deal with something like the Virgin Birth, or any miracle for that matter.
We find God in the Bible again and again answering prayer by miracles. But miracles do not break natural laws. Natural laws are not like city ordinances. They do not say that something must or should happen. They are simply statements of principles that have been observed, tested by experiments, and, consequently, successfully used to predict processes or events. If something occurs that does not fit the “law,” then scientists do further testing and experimentation with a view to changing the law.
There is room in the realm of natural law also for the interaction with other forces. For example, if you drop a ball, the law of gravity—which holds well as a description of what we usually encounter in daily life—indicates it will fall toward the earth with a certain acceleration. And if you catch the ball before it hits the earth, you are not breaking the law of gravity. That law is still operating, and you feel it by the weight of the ball in your hand. But by putting out your hand, you bring your strength into the situation to counteract the effect of gravity. In the same way, the Bible talks about God’s “mighty hand,” that is, His great power. So when God answers prayer by a miracle, He simply counters the situation with a greater power, His almighty power. The God who created the universe knows how to do this, and we have the assurance again and again in the Bible that He is—and will continue to be—active in the world.
Prayer, then, must take into account what the Bible says about God’s nature, will, and plan. God does hear the simple prayer of a child. But as we grow in God we will keep searching the Scriptures to find out more about Him, more about His will, more about prayer. We will seek the help of the Holy Spirit, since Jesus promised that “he will guide … into all truth” (John 16:13). Where we still have questions, doubts, problems, we can have His help to illuminate the Scriptures and give us the insights we need. He will show us that He is not only able but willing to answer our prayers. He hears us no matter what language we use. He hears us whether we are standing, kneeling, sitting, or in whatever circumstances we may be.15 He hears us when we pray in spite of the fact we do not feel like praying—or when we do not feel anything at all. We can be open with Him. We can tell him what we really think and feel. But because He loves us, because He wants to use us for His glory, because He has prepared wonderful things far beyond our imagination, He also wants to hear the same prayer of dedication that Jesus prayed: “Yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).
1. How can we overcome our natural resistance to prayer?
2. As we approach God in prayer, why is it important that we recognize He is a personal God?
3. What can we expect God to do when believers divide in prayer, some praying for and some praying against the same thing?
4. How does God’s sovereignty affect His dealings with our prayers?
5. Under what circumstances might God overrule the laws of nature to answer prayer?