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Series: Why Doesn't God Answer My Prayers?
Program Title: Are You Remembering to Ask?
Dr. Woodrow Kroll
April 25, 2011
Woodrow Kroll: Have you ever wondered: Why doesn't God answer my
prayers?
Tami Weissert: If so, then stick around and find out what gets in the way.
Woodrow Kroll: We'll uncover several reasons why God may not answer
your prayers. Some of them may surprise you. Hi, I'm Woodrow Kroll.
Tami Weissert: I'm Tami Weissert.
Woodrow Kroll: And this is Back to the Bible.
Tami Weissert: Welcome. This week it's all about prayer here on Back to
the Bible. Wood, you're building our series around a very important
question.
Woodrow Kroll: Yes, Tami, I think it's a question most of us have asked a
time or two: "Why doesn't God answer my prayers?" You and I pray, and
sometimes God seems to do nothing. So today we're looking at Why? And
what gets in our way when we pray?
Tami Weissert: You're starting today with the one reason that's almost too
obvious.
Woodrow Kroll: It's pretty simple; but if God isn't answering your prayer,
did you remember to ask Him? We'll see how that works out today.
Tami Weissert: Let's start with some basic things we need to know about
prayer. Here's Dr. Kroll with our Back to the Bible study.
Woodrow Kroll: Let's think about some of the reasons why the Bible says
God may not answer our prayers.
First of all, I think it's important for each of us to recognize that there are
times when God says, "Don't pray, I'm not listening."
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Ever since I've been knee high to a hiccup, I've been hearing people say to
me: "God always answers our prayers; sometimes He says 'Yes'; sometimes
He says 'No'; sometimes He says 'Maybe,' but He always answers our
prayers."
I believed that until I started to read the Bible and I found out that there are
places in the Bible where God says, "No, you're not ready to talk to Me, so
I'm not ready to answer you."
Let's consider, today, some of the things that might get in our way, some of
the barriers that might get in your way to your prayer life.
The first one is this (it seems so easy; it seems so normal; it seems so down
to earth, but it's one of the real reasons why we don't get answers to our
prayers): We forget to ask.
We just forget to talk to God.
You have to ask yourself a question: "Am I remembering to ask God for the
things I need? Or am I just going on my way in life and trying to work it out
all by myself?"
The folks at the Barna Group say that most Americans do pray. In fact, 82
percent of Americans say that they pray to God. But when you pin down a
person, when you ask them: "Tell me about your prayer life," their prayers
to God tend to be a thanks before meal (Grace), maybe a prayer at night; or
if they're in deep trouble, that's when they pray to God. A general
conversation (a normal daily conversation) with God is totally out of their
purview at all. They just don't ever really understand that they should do
that.
For me, I have to say to myself, "OK, when I talk to God, am I being specific
about the things that I need? Am I remembering to ask God for the things I
need?"
Let me take you to the Word today, because there are just some very
pointed references in Scripture. Jesus says some of them. The Apostle James
says one of them. James 4:2 talks about the very issue of forgetting to ask
God. He says: "You have not, because you do not ask God" (paraphrase).
That's about as simple as it can get. One of the reasons why we don't have
what we think we need is because we fail to take it up with God. Sometimes
the silence of heaven follows our own silence.
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If God chooses not to answer our prayers because we ask for the wrong
thing (we're going to discuss that in a couple of days); if God chooses not to
respond to us because we're asking for the wrong things, that is very, very
different from God not responding because we haven't asked at all.
Let me encourage you when you have needs to make note of those needs.
The silence of heaven follows our silence. Wasn't it Billy Graham who said,
"Heaven is full of answers to prayers for which no one has ever bothered to
ask"? If we don't ask, we don't receive.
Do you remember Hezekiah, one of the kings of Judah? The Bible records
one of his prayers, and it's a great prayer. He had a specific list of requests
to bring to God, and with good reason. Hezekiah was a man who was in
deep trouble. The armies of Sennacherib had completely surrounded the city
of Jerusalem. And Hezekiah, as soon as he found out that he was in trouble,
went to God immediately and prayed to God. But while he prayed the kind of
prayer we all need to pray (that is, he was very reverent to God up front, he
spoke about God being the God who dwells between the cherubim, the only
God that there really is), nevertheless, there was a point at which he
became very specific.
I think we can allay any fears we have of constantly coming to God and just
dropping off our requests at His door if we make prayer more than a
shopping list. Prayer can never be just a shopping list: "God I need this and
I need that, and Wilma is sick and, You know, Uncle John is in prison . . .,"
just all the normal things of life. Those are important to us, but that's not
the substance of prayer.
Tami Weissert: We're talking about prayer today with Bible Teacher
Woodrow Kroll here on Back to the Bible.
Wood, you just said that prayer can never be only a shopping list. But we
can have, and should have, a specific request. So how do we keep from
crossing the line from genuine requests into that shopping list category?
Woodrow Kroll: That's a good question. It's good to take a list with you to
prayer. I always do that, because my mind doesn't always remember the
things I want to talk to God about. Or sometimes my mind tends to wander
in prayer.
Lists are good. But let's distinguish between shopping lists and prayer lists.
Shopping lists are the things we want. We don't know if God would be
pleased, but we say to ourselves, "Hey, why not take a shot?" That's a
shopping list.
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Those things on a prayer list are genuine needs that have been impressed
on our minds that we know we have to take to God. We just have to find
that delicate balance between saying, "Lord, I'm here again and here's the
stuff I want," and forgetting to go to Him entirely because we're working out
our problems all by ourselves.
Tami Weissert: Wood, you've been talking about how we forget to put our
requests before God. What about when we neglect to ask because we think
that our need is too small, or kind of silly, or we shouldn't even be putting it
before God? Does God really want us to bring everything to Him?
Woodrow Kroll: When my children were small, they came to ask me for
something that they really wanted. And I would say to them, "Is what you're
going to ask me really silly?" Mostly they would say "No," with a great deal
of passion. Sometimes, however, they would say "Maybe a little." My
response would always be, "If you can come to me to ask something of me,
don't you think I should be the one to determine whether or not it's silly."
They always agreed.
That's the way it is with God. Let all your requests be made known to God,
and trust Him to sort out the ones that are legitimate.
Tami Weissert: At Back to the Bible we're excited about bringing you Bible
teaching to help you understand God's Word and grow spiritually. But as
we've heard, there's another aspect of our spiritual life that's important, and
that's prayer: Talking to God, getting to know Him better, pouring our hearts
out to Him, and seeking His will and making our needs known. That's all part
of prayer. And we want to be part of your experience with prayer too. If
there's something you would like us to pray about with you, any special
request you have, then go to backtothebible.org and click on the "Prayer
Request" button on the Home Page. It's easy to submit your request, and
you can be confident that we will pray for you. The Prayer Page also gives
you an opportunity to pray for us, with updates on our ministry and prayer
needs. That's the new Prayer Request Page at backtothebible.org. Or in
Canada: backtothebible.ca. Check it out today.
Why should we bother asking God for something when He already knows
what we need? That's the question Woodrow Kroll answers as we continue
today's study on Back to the Bible.
Woodrow Kroll: Have you wondered, "Why do we ask when God already
knows?"
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As a parent, you enjoy having your kids come to you and to talk with you.
They may want something, too, but they also want to spend time with you.
And they just want to talk.
If we only go to God when we want something, we're kind of like a kid who
is very greedy, very self-centered, and we don't want to be like that. It's like
the little girl in church who said to her mother, "I think everybody in heaven
thinks I'm dead." Her mother said, "Why on earth would you say that?" She
said, "I haven't prayed in a week."
We go to God frequently. Constantly we are before the Lord God. And we do
that specifically because we want God to be our closest Friend. The way we
become His friend is through the Word and in prayer. If we forget to ask for
the things we need, let's not blame God that He didn't do for us what we
needed to be done, because the Bible clearly says, "You do not have
because you do not ask."
F. B. Meyer, one of the great Bible teachers of years gone by said, "The
great tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer but unoffered prayer." That
we fail to take our needs to God. That can be just a little prayer that comes
to our minds or a little need that comes to our minds. But at other times, it
needs to be a time when we sit down and have absolute silence before the
world and silence before everyone else. We shut everybody else out, and we
just pour out our spirit to God.
I remember Calvin Miller wrote a little ditty one time in a book called The
Table of Inwardness. Listen to this:
"We mutter and sputter,
We fume and we spurt.
We mumble and grumble.
Our feelings get hurt.
We can't understand things.
Our vision grows dim.
When all that we need
Is a moment with Him."
It's taking that time to spend with God that allows us to have a feeling that
we've done what God has asked us to do. We've come before Him, and
we've come before Him in a way that pleases Him, and we've left our
requests behind.
If He chooses to answer them, that's His business. But we have done what
God asked us to do. That is to communicate with Him, to be there with Him,
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to make sure that we're doing the right things in order for God to answer our
prayers.
If you don't ask, the Bible says you don't receive. Just because you ask
doesn't necessarily mean you're going to receive. But God wants us to be on
speaking terms with Him in such a way that we come before Him and we can
ask.
What are the reasons why God doesn't answer our prayers? What are the
roadblocks that you and I often set up that keep God from answering our
prayers?
I think the very first roadblock is the most obvious. And that is: We just
don't ask. We fail to ask. If you don't remember to ask God for what you
need, don't blame Him for not supplying what you forgot to ask about.
That's one of the roadblocks.
The second reason that God does not answer our prayers is far more
difficult. That is: Do we have sin in our lives that would keep us from getting
through to God? The question is this: Am I cherishing sin more than I
cherish God?
This is a difficult question for us to ask because we don't always know the
answer to this. But I want to tell you who does: God does. If we put up a
roadblock of sin before us, if there is sin in our pathway that keeps us from
getting to God, one of the reasons why God doesn't answer is that we
haven't gotten through because of our own sin. The Bible is extremely clear
about this.
Listen to Psalm 66:18: "If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would
not have listened to me. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not
hear me."
I don't know of anything clearer in the English language than that. When
people say, "God always hears my prayers," I say to them, "Does that mean
you have never sinned?" Because the Bible clearly says that if I sin and that
sin isn't taken care of, then God will not hear me because of that sin. That is
a roadblock to me, and I need to deal with that roadblock.
Sometimes, we cherish sin because, frankly, we aren't quite ready to pray.
When Jesus says that everyone who asks will receive, He is assuming that
those who pray are His disciples who are right with God and not cherishing
iniquity. And, therefore, God can respond to them. It's not that we simply go
to God and ask and it's an automatic "Yes" or an automatic "No." Sometimes
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we go to God and our prayers don't get to heaven because sin blocks them
on the way.
What does the Bible have to say about this? Well, let's read some things,
starting with Isaiah 59:1-2: "Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that
it cannot save; nor His ear dull, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have
made a separation between you and your God; and your sins have hidden
His face from you, so that He does not hear."
That's pretty direct, isn't it? It's not that the Lord can't hear us; He can
always hear us. The question is: Does God hear my prayers? Yes, He does.
Does He always respond to my prayers? No, He doesn't, because sometimes
we separate ourselves from God by our own sin. If we don't deal with sin,
then God doesn't respond to our prayers. It's not a problem with His
hearing. It's a problem with our sin.
Before I say to God, "Oh, there's a need and I have to come to You with this
need," I just need to constantly be keeping short accounts with God, making
sure that when I know things that enter my life that are not supposed to be
there that I deal with those on the spot. I don't wait until the end of the day.
I don't build a list of sins that I have to confess before I go to prayer. I deal
with those along the way.
I want to zip up a prayer to God. "Whisper a prayer" to God, as the old song
says. I'm ready to do that. But I have to constantly keep myself ready to do
that. The only way I can do that is to constantly be keeping short accounts
with God.
We're talking about cherishing sin more than we cherish God. What is it that
would keep God from hearing and responding to our prayers? Look at Psalm
24:1-4: "The earth is the LORD'S, and the fullness thereof, the world, and
those who dwell therein. For He founded it upon the seas, and established it
upon the rivers. Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand
in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not
lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully."
The whole issue of clean hands and a pure heart is something we talk about
a lot here at Back to the Bible. I think the reason is that it's evident from
reading God's Word that we just don't have a free pass to God, that we can't
say, "OK, I'm saved now. I've been justified by His blood. I have access to
the Father. Therefore, even if there's a wreck on the highway, I can get
around it and get to God." That just isn't the case.
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Access means I have free access to God. I have open access to God. But
sometimes I put up my own barricades. One of the barricades I often put up
is just the barricade of my own sin. I can't get around it. I can't get under it.
I can't get over it. I can't go through it. The only thing I can do is have God
remove it.
If we want to stand before the Lord God (and that's another way of talking
about coming into His presence, like prayer is coming into His presence), if
we want to do that, then we have to have clean hands and a pure heart.
We don't always have clean hands and a pure heart, isn't that true? That's
why it's important for us to unburden ourselves of the barricades of sin
before we get into serious prayer with God. Take the time to confess what
you know to be wrong in your life before you talk to God.
That's sometimes not easy to do because something will come up that you
need to address immediately. But you can always go back to God and say,
"Lord, I wasn't ready for that prayer, and I want to get ready now."
It's one of the customs of the Christian church, in America at least, for the
pastor (if he recognizes someone in the congregation) to call on that person
to pray, especially if it's a visiting dignitary or another pastor or someone
like that.
I remember in church one time, the pastor spotting another minister in the
audience and instead of saying, "Would you pray?" he said, "Are you ready
to pray?"
I thought: Now that's a strange expression, "Are you ready to pray?" What
he meant was, "Are you in a position that if I call on you to pray you can
actually talk to God and get through. Are you cherishing sin in your life more
than you cherish God? Are you willing to give up what is in your life that isn't
supposed to be there so that you can have an absolutely clear channel to
God?"
We always know there are things we've done wrong, even if we can't
specifically put our finger on them. If we can, however, put our finger on it,
we dare not cover it over with a blanket. Why? Proverbs 28:13: "He who
covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them
will have mercy."
I can't know in my own mind that there is something wrong in my life and
just go to God and say, "God's going to overlook this because He is a
gracious God."
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I don't like to talk about sin in my life any more than you like to talk about
sin in yours. We're not really talking so much about sin today as we're
talking about God answering our prayers. I think it would be wrong for us to
believe that every time we shoot up a prayer to God, He's just sitting there
waiting, begging to hear from us, and He's going to answer that prayer.
That's not what the Bible says.
Today, we've looked at two of the barriers, two barricades, two reasons why
God may not answer our prayers. Number one is that sometimes we just
simply forget to ask. If we do not ask, we do not receive.
But even a more serious one than that is: Sometimes we ask and we aren't
prepared to ask, because there is something in our lives that we know ought
not be there. As a result of that, cherishing that sin means to God we have
cherished our sin more than we have cherished Him. And unless we remove
that from our lives, we are not going to get answers to our prayers.
Tami Weissert: Thanks for joining us for today's Back to the Bible study
with Woodrow Kroll.
Wood, you talked about two steps to answered prayer. The first is to ask.
The second step is to make sure we're clean before God and not hanging on
to sin. So, if we do these two things, should we expect to get an answer to
our prayer?
Woodrow Kroll: It's a start. Look, what we're doing on Back to the Bible
this week is: We are weeding out all those things that hinder our prayers.
We are eliminating things that get in the way of God answering us. As you
say, we have seen two today: Forgetting to ask, and not being clean and
pure in heart and hand. But there is more. We can take care of these things
and still have huge hurdles in our way to getting God to answer our prayers.
We're going to press on tomorrow.
Tami Weissert: People need to tune in the rest of the week and get them
all.
Woodrow Kroll: There's a lot to be said about why God doesn't answer
prayer. We've only said two things so far.
Tami Weissert: Wood, how do we respond to someone who tells us they've
given up on God or they don't believe He exists because they tried to pray;
they didn't get any answers?
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Woodrow Kroll: Generally that happens when they aren't willing to take a
hard look at themselves. It's the things we're going to be talking about all
this week that keep God from answering our prayers. People who give up on
God have nowhere else to go. People who don't completely understand why
God hasn't answered them, but they still believe in Him, they at least have
something to hold on to and hope. They can hope in Him. They have found
in Him the best possible place to go to get their prayers answered.
Tami Weissert: You talked about not being willing to take a hard look.
Describe a "hard look" for us.
Woodrow Kroll: I think we have to be honest with ourselves. We have to
ask hard questions, like "What's my motivation in asking for this? Why do I
really want God to do this? Do I think God will be pleased when I ask Him
for this?" If we take a hard look and we don't have good answers to those
questions, I think we're wasting our time in prayer.
Tami Weissert: Forgetting to ask. Unconfessed sin. Wood, I like that you
are calling these "Roadblocks to Prayer," because roadblocks usually aren't
permanent; they can be moved. What is the next roadblock?
Woodrow Kroll: It's a big one. It's a significant one: Are we treating God
well enough for Him to answer my prayers? If you've never thought of that
as a hindrance before, the Bible has something definite to say about that.
We'll explore it tomorrow.
We've come to the end of another Back to the Bible program today. I'll be
here, Tami will be here, and we pray that you will be here as well as we
continue our study in "Why Doesn't God Answer My Prayers?" Between now
and then, why not read some of the Bible for yourself? Maybe reread the
passages we focused on today. See what else God has to teach you.
Thanks for dropping by. I'm Woodrow Kroll. Have a good and godly day.
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