What role does our faith play when we are praying for the salvation of others? It's an important question related to our prayer lives and the question comes to us from a listener named Richard. "Hello Pastor John, thank you for this podcast. I write because I have become discouraged in my prayer life.

None of my requests ever get answered. I've been praying for family members to be reconciled, friends to come to faith, Christ's glory to be made evident to me, and other requests like these. I faithfully read scripture and I cannot think of any unrepentant sin in my life that would hinder my prayers.

It just seems my answers are always no and I have become discouraged because of it. Do you have any sustaining counsel for a weak brother who is enduring the silence of God?" Richard, I will try to give you some sustaining counsel, although I do share some of your deep disappointments and am fighting the same fight you are fighting in regard to extended years of unanswered prayer, especially as it regards salvation of people we care about.

So I don't know if what I say will be what you need, but it is what I have to give and how I press on. Outside the Bible, no one has taught me more about prayer than George Mueller. Perhaps you know that he was famous in the 19th century for founding and running orphanages in Britain by asking God for every need that it would be met for these children and seeing amazing answers to his prayers.

But listen to him in 1864. He was 59 years old when he wrote this. "I am now in 1864 waiting upon God for certain blessings for which I have daily besought Him for 19 years and 6 months without one day's intermission." Still, the full answer is not yet given concerning the conversion of certain individuals.

In the meantime, I have received many thousands of answers to prayer. I have also prayed daily without intermission for the conversion of other individuals about 10 years, others 6 or 7 years, for others 4, 3, and 2 years, for others about 8 years, 18 months, and still the answer is not yet granted.

That's the end of the quote. Mueller had an explanation for why some prayers like this were not answered for 20 years and thousands were answered. His explanation was that his prayers for the salvation of particular people to be saved did not have explicit biblical promises to rest on that those very individuals would be saved.

And the promise that whatever we ask would be given is always qualified, he would argue, by praying according to God's sovereign will. Read 1 John 5, 14 to 15, and read it carefully because in one half of the verse it sounds totally sweeping, whatever you ask, and in the other half of the verse it sounds very qualified according to God's sovereign will.

But Mueller said that when he prayed for the needs of the orphans to be met, the prayer was based on an explicit biblical promise in Matthew 6, 33, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." He cited that specifically.

He did not decide ahead of time what the "all things" had to include. Be careful, don't over-expect with specificity when the Bible hasn't been specific. But he did believe God had promised that what was needed for the doing of God's will and the glorifying of God's name, which is what we're commanded to do, we could go to many other passages of Scripture to see this same explicit promise.

Philippians 4, 19, "My God will supply all your needs." Romans 8, 32, "He will give us all things with Him." Psalm 34, 10, "Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing," and on and on. Mueller believed that it was a sin not to believe that God would give us what these passages promise.

People thought he had the gift of faith that was in a class by itself, and other Christians didn't have this. Mueller emphatically denied this. He insisted that he simply had the grace of faith, not the spiritual gift of faith from 1 Corinthians 12, like the gift of prophecy or the gift of wisdom.

In one of the most illuminating passages, helpful for me, here's what he said. "The difference between the gift and the grace of faith seems to be this. According to the gift of faith, I am able to do a thing or believe that a thing will come to pass, the not doing of which or the not believing of which would not be sin." You may have to pause this and think about that.

According to the—I'm still quoting now—"According to the grace of faith, I am able to do a thing or believe that a thing will come to pass, respecting which I have the Word of God as the ground to rest upon, and therefore the not doing it or not believing it would be sin.

For instance," he says—I'm still quoting—"For instance, the gift of faith would be needed to believe that a sick person should be restored, for there is no promise to that effect. The grace of faith is needed to believe that the Lord will give me the necessaries of life if I seek His kingdom and His righteousness, for there is a promise to that effect." So here's the implication.

I'm done quoting now. So here's the implication. His wife, Mary, was dying. He's about 60 years old. He prayed that she be healed. She was not healed. And here's what he wrote. He died. Here's what he wrote. "The last portion of Scripture which I read to my precious wife was this, 'The Lord God is a sun and shield.

The Lord gives grace and glory. No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.' I said to myself with regard to the latter part, 'No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly. I am in myself a poor worthless sinner, but I have been saved by the blood of Christ and I do not live in sin.

I walk uprightly before God. Therefore if it is really good for me, my darling wife will be raised up again.' Sick as she is, God will restore her again. But if she is not restored again, then it would not be a good thing for me. And so my heart was at rest.

I was satisfied with God." So Richard, perhaps the encouragement for you and me is first, don't grow weary in praying for your lost friends and family since it may be that the very perseverance is a sign that the faith you are exercising in the perseverance is itself a gift.

That's what Mueller believed, and he did see some saved after 50 years of prayer. And second, don't miss or minimize the answers you are receiving. You say there are none. I doubt that. Are you still a Christian? God is hearing your prayer for keeping. Are you in any measure of health?

God is sustaining. Are you in any way at all influential in pointing others to Christ? God is working. Are you inclined to God's Word? That's an answer to prayer. Are you able to see any beautiful spiritual things in God's Word? God is answering. Is Christ precious to you? That's a miraculous answer.

Do you have any measure of satisfaction in Him? He's acting. Do you hallow His name, seek His kingdom, do His will, eat daily bread, escape from temptation, defeat the devil's lies? Oh, my! God is answering. Let us not make too little of these glorious acts of God. Amen. Wow, there's a lot to meditate on here for all of us in our prayer lives.

Thank you, Pastor John, for that response. And thank you for the great question, Richard. Thanks for sending that in. Over at our online home, you can explore all 1,250 of our episodes. You can scan a list of our most popular ones, read full transcripts, and even send us a question of your own like Richard did today.

To do all those things, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. And to get new episodes delivered to you three times per week, subscribe to the Ask Pastor John podcast in your favorite podcast app. Well, how does Jesus change our relationship to the Old Testament? It's a massive question. And it's one we get in the inbox every single day, it seems, and it's the question we will close the week out with on Friday when we return with John Piper in the studio.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and we'll see you then.