What Is the Place of Faith in My Unanswered Prayers?

00:00:00.000 | [Intro Music]

00:00:04.720 | What role does our faith play when we are praying for the salvation of others?

00:00:09.440 | It's an important question related to our prayer lives and the question comes to us

00:00:12.860 | from a listener named Richard.

00:00:14.160 | "Hello Pastor John, thank you for this podcast.

00:00:16.320 | I write because I have become discouraged in my prayer life.

00:00:19.680 | None of my requests ever get answered.

00:00:22.040 | I've been praying for family members to be reconciled, friends to come to faith, Christ's

00:00:26.240 | glory to be made evident to me, and other requests like these.

00:00:29.760 | I faithfully read scripture and I cannot think of any unrepentant sin in my life that would

00:00:35.120 | hinder my prayers.

00:00:36.800 | It just seems my answers are always no and I have become discouraged because of it.

00:00:41.400 | Do you have any sustaining counsel for a weak brother who is enduring the silence of God?"

00:00:47.680 | Richard, I will try to give you some sustaining counsel, although I do share some of your

00:00:56.640 | deep disappointments and am fighting the same fight you are fighting in regard to extended

00:01:06.280 | years of unanswered prayer, especially as it regards salvation of people we care about.

00:01:15.080 | So I don't know if what I say will be what you need, but it is what I have to give and

00:01:23.800 | how I press on.

00:01:26.400 | Outside the Bible, no one has taught me more about prayer than George Mueller.

00:01:36.920 | Perhaps you know that he was famous in the 19th century for founding and running orphanages

00:01:45.400 | in Britain by asking God for every need that it would be met for these children and seeing

00:01:54.240 | amazing answers to his prayers.

00:01:57.880 | But listen to him in 1864.

00:02:00.960 | He was 59 years old when he wrote this.

00:02:03.560 | "I am now in 1864 waiting upon God for certain blessings for which I have daily besought

00:02:12.320 | Him for 19 years and 6 months without one day's intermission."

00:02:18.840 | Still, the full answer is not yet given concerning the conversion of certain individuals.

00:02:26.040 | In the meantime, I have received many thousands of answers to prayer.

00:02:32.320 | I have also prayed daily without intermission for the conversion of other individuals about

00:02:38.560 | 10 years, others 6 or 7 years, for others 4, 3, and 2 years, for others about 8 years,

00:02:48.800 | 18 months, and still the answer is not yet granted.

00:02:53.240 | That's the end of the quote.

00:02:56.560 | Mueller had an explanation for why some prayers like this were not answered for 20 years and

00:03:05.520 | thousands were answered.

00:03:09.000 | His explanation was that his prayers for the salvation of particular people to be saved

00:03:17.000 | did not have explicit biblical promises to rest on that those very individuals would

00:03:26.360 | be saved.

00:03:27.920 | And the promise that whatever we ask would be given is always qualified, he would argue,

00:03:35.280 | by praying according to God's sovereign will.

00:03:38.400 | Read 1 John 5, 14 to 15, and read it carefully because in one half of the verse it sounds

00:03:44.840 | totally sweeping, whatever you ask, and in the other half of the verse it sounds very

00:03:50.040 | qualified according to God's sovereign will.

00:03:53.520 | But Mueller said that when he prayed for the needs of the orphans to be met, the prayer

00:04:01.440 | was based on an explicit biblical promise in Matthew 6, 33, "Seek first the kingdom

00:04:09.080 | of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

00:04:15.520 | He cited that specifically.

00:04:17.320 | He did not decide ahead of time what the "all things" had to include.

00:04:21.920 | Be careful, don't over-expect with specificity when the Bible hasn't been specific.

00:04:28.420 | But he did believe God had promised that what was needed for the doing of God's will and

00:04:36.200 | the glorifying of God's name, which is what we're commanded to do, we could go to many

00:04:42.080 | other passages of Scripture to see this same explicit promise.

00:04:46.280 | Philippians 4, 19, "My God will supply all your needs."

00:04:50.280 | Romans 8, 32, "He will give us all things with Him."

00:04:54.120 | Psalm 34, 10, "Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing," and on and on.

00:05:00.920 | Mueller believed that it was a sin not to believe that God would give us what these

00:05:07.260 | passages promise.

00:05:09.640 | People thought he had the gift of faith that was in a class by itself, and other Christians

00:05:15.240 | didn't have this.

00:05:16.840 | Mueller emphatically denied this.

00:05:20.320 | He insisted that he simply had the grace of faith, not the spiritual gift of faith from

00:05:27.240 | 1 Corinthians 12, like the gift of prophecy or the gift of wisdom.

00:05:32.600 | In one of the most illuminating passages, helpful for me, here's what he said.

00:05:38.120 | "The difference between the gift and the grace of faith seems to be this.

00:05:45.040 | According to the gift of faith, I am able to do a thing or believe that a thing will

00:05:50.540 | come to pass, the not doing of which or the not believing of which would not be sin."

00:05:59.240 | You may have to pause this and think about that.

00:06:03.920 | According to the—I'm still quoting now—"According to the grace of faith, I am able to do a thing

00:06:09.520 | or believe that a thing will come to pass, respecting which I have the Word of God as

00:06:15.960 | the ground to rest upon, and therefore the not doing it or not believing it would be

00:06:23.080 | sin.

00:06:24.520 | For instance," he says—I'm still quoting—"For instance, the gift of faith would be needed

00:06:32.360 | to believe that a sick person should be restored, for there is no promise to that effect.

00:06:40.600 | The grace of faith is needed to believe that the Lord will give me the necessaries of life

00:06:46.840 | if I seek His kingdom and His righteousness, for there is a promise to that effect."

00:06:55.020 | So here's the implication.

00:06:56.020 | I'm done quoting now.

00:06:57.460 | So here's the implication.

00:06:59.280 | His wife, Mary, was dying.

00:07:02.120 | He's about 60 years old.

00:07:04.340 | He prayed that she be healed.

00:07:06.760 | She was not healed.

00:07:08.780 | And here's what he wrote.

00:07:09.880 | He died.

00:07:10.880 | Here's what he wrote.

00:07:11.880 | "The last portion of Scripture which I read to my precious wife was this, 'The Lord

00:07:18.080 | God is a sun and shield.

00:07:20.240 | The Lord gives grace and glory.

00:07:23.640 | No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.'

00:07:31.240 | I said to myself with regard to the latter part, 'No good thing will He withhold from

00:07:37.680 | them that walk uprightly.

00:07:40.520 | I am in myself a poor worthless sinner, but I have been saved by the blood of Christ and

00:07:46.400 | I do not live in sin.

00:07:48.440 | I walk uprightly before God.

00:07:51.280 | Therefore if it is really good for me, my darling wife will be raised up again.'

00:07:59.160 | Sick as she is, God will restore her again.

00:08:04.160 | But if she is not restored again, then it would not be a good thing for me.

00:08:11.360 | And so my heart was at rest.

00:08:16.120 | I was satisfied with God."

00:08:20.560 | So Richard, perhaps the encouragement for you and me is first, don't grow weary in

00:08:30.600 | praying for your lost friends and family since it may be that the very perseverance is a

00:08:37.680 | sign that the faith you are exercising in the perseverance is itself a gift.

00:08:45.000 | That's what Mueller believed, and he did see some saved after 50 years of prayer.

00:08:51.960 | And second, don't miss or minimize the answers you are receiving.

00:08:59.800 | You say there are none.

00:09:00.880 | I doubt that.

00:09:02.760 | Are you still a Christian?

00:09:05.200 | God is hearing your prayer for keeping.

00:09:08.040 | Are you in any measure of health?

00:09:11.400 | God is sustaining.

00:09:13.480 | Are you in any way at all influential in pointing others to Christ?

00:09:19.680 | God is working.

00:09:21.360 | Are you inclined to God's Word?

00:09:24.640 | That's an answer to prayer.

00:09:26.200 | Are you able to see any beautiful spiritual things in God's Word?

00:09:31.960 | God is answering.

00:09:33.920 | Is Christ precious to you?

00:09:36.400 | That's a miraculous answer.

00:09:38.600 | Do you have any measure of satisfaction in Him?

00:09:42.360 | He's acting.

00:09:44.160 | Do you hallow His name, seek His kingdom, do His will, eat daily bread, escape from

00:09:50.880 | temptation, defeat the devil's lies?

00:09:53.400 | Oh, my!

00:09:54.940 | God is answering.

00:09:56.480 | Let us not make too little of these glorious acts of God.

00:10:02.880 | Amen.

00:10:03.880 | Wow, there's a lot to meditate on here for all of us in our prayer lives.

00:10:07.920 | Thank you, Pastor John, for that response.

00:10:10.080 | And thank you for the great question, Richard.

00:10:12.240 | Thanks for sending that in.

00:10:13.240 | Over at our online home, you can explore all 1,250 of our episodes.

00:10:17.420 | You can scan a list of our most popular ones, read full transcripts, and even send us a

00:10:21.960 | question of your own like Richard did today.

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00:10:33.000 | John podcast in your favorite podcast app.

00:10:35.760 | Well, how does Jesus change our relationship to the Old Testament?

00:10:41.720 | It's a massive question.

00:10:42.720 | And it's one we get in the inbox every single day, it seems, and it's the question we will

00:10:47.560 | close the week out with on Friday when we return with John Piper in the studio.

00:10:52.080 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and we'll see you then.

00:10:54.600 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

00:11:02.500 | [ Silence ]

What Is the Place of Faith in My Unanswered Prayers?

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