Homiletics
“Faith is not about everything turning out okay. Faith is about being okay no matter how things turn out.” ~Anonymous
There was a time when I desperately desired something specific to occur before a certain event, and I fasted and prayed to that end for months. It didn’t happen. The thing I wanted and requested did come after the event, not before. Later I realized that no matter how long and hard I prayed, that particular request was never going to be answered my way—because it wasn’t meant to be. Despite my prayer, God had done it His way—in His own time. It didn’t mean He was at cross purposes with me or that He despised my prayer. It merely meant He had been sovereign over circumstances.
If you are a child of God, perhaps you have had similar experiences, where prayer was not answered in the way you’d asked or anticipated. And maybe you wondered if God was listening. Where was God anyway? Were His promises expired? Was there something wrong with you? or your prayer?
GOD’S TIMING
Abraham
For many years, Abraham, “the friend of God” (James 2:23), prayed for a son (Genesis 15:1-6). Despite his cries, God kept him waiting. To us it may seem cruel to keep a man waiting for an answer like that and all the while he is growing old and wasting his prime. A man of forty is young enough to enjoy children, and strong and able-bodied enough to meet the growing demands of a youngster; but a man of advanced age? How can an old man enjoy a newborn? knowing that ahead are years of the tedious demands of childcare and nurture? Yet, in time, Abraham did have a son; in fact, eight sons (Genesis 16:16; 21:5; 25:1, 2); but only one was the son of promise, given—in God’s own time—when Abraham was a hundred years old.
Joseph
Joseph was a great-grandson of Abraham. He was a good boy, the best of the lot (Genesis 37:1-36; 39:1 through 41:57). Yet something sad happened to him. Through no fault of his own he wound up in prison in a faraway land. “His feet they hurt with fetters; he was laid in iron” (Psalm 105:18), suggesting manacles dug into his flesh, leaving him with sores and scars. In prison Joseph was in physical and emotional pain, no doubt crying out to God to rescue him and get him out of this place. He remembered how God had spoken to him when he was only a youth of seventeen back in his father’s house, telling him that one day he would be a great man. Haunting memories. Until he was released, at age thirty—over ten years in prison—”the word of the Lord tried him” (105:19).
No amount of prayers and tears would have changed the outcome because this was the way it was meant to be. Everything was suspended in animation until the word of the Lord came. When the timing was right, God released him for His own purposes. Joseph later told his brothers, who had betrayed him and sold him into slavery, “You thought evil against me; but God meant it for good, to save much people alive” (Genesis 50:20).
Mary, Martha, and Lazarus
These were three siblings, close friends of Jesus, usually named together, in that order, by persons who reference them. On one occasion Lazarus was sick in Bethany, a five-mile walk from Jerusalem, and the sisters sent for Jesus to come and heal him (John 11:1-57). Jesus had recently escaped that area because Jews were trying to kill Him. He and His disciples were camped on the Jordan River, near the spot where He’d been baptized (10:39, 40), because He wanted to put some distance between Himself and the Jews. When He received the message, He told His disciples, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God” (11:4), and made no move to come (11:6).
No amount of imploring would have altered His decision because this was the way it was meant to be. He was literally waiting for Lazarus to die.
Days later He suddenly told the disciples, “Let’s go to Judea” (11:7).
The Jews were trying to stone Him there. “And You want to go back?” (11:8).
“Our friend Lazarus is sleeping. I’m going to wake him” (11:11).
Yeah, well, if he’s sleeping, he’s okay (11:12).
Jesus said plainly, “Lazarus is dead” (11:14). “But I’m glad for your sakes I was not there [because now you’re going to see something that will strengthen your faith]” (11:15).
When He came to the place, Martha ran out to meet Him. “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died” (11:21). A great statement of faith. But she went even further. “Even now, if You ask, God will give it You” (11:22). An even greater statement of faith. Then when Jesus told the people to roll away the stone from the sepulchre, her practical sense kicked in. “Lord, by this time he stinks. He’s been dead four days” (11:39).
Jesus reminded her: “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” (11:40). When they rolled away the stone, Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth” (11:43). And he who was dead came out of the grave still wrapped in gravecloths. Many who witnessed the miracle believed on Jesus. Some were snitches who ran to tell the Pharisees, who found themselves in a quandary. “What shall we do? This Man does miracles” (11:47).
God’s timing and purpose here went beyond letting a man die and bringing him back to life. This was the thing that set the stage for the Crucifixion, something long in the plan of God. “From that day forth they took counsel together to put Jesus to death” (11:53). They even consulted how to put Lazarus to death; because of him, many Jews believed on Jesus (12:10, 11). The only problem with Lazarus was he wouldn’t stay dead.
From that day Jesus walked no more publicly among the Jews (11:54). He went on the lam, to a wilderness place called Ephraim. Didn’t He know they’d eventually catch up with Him and crucify Him? Yes, but all in God’s time, not theirs.
DIVINE RETRIBUTION
Sometimes God does not answer prayer because we are out of favor with Him. Not only our prayer, but sometimes even our life is not what He wants it to be. Sometimes God is punishing us for something we’ve done wrong that is so obvious, we are well aware of it.
Esau
Esau was a grandson of Abraham. One writer calls him “a profane person … who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright” (Hebrews 12:16). “When he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected … he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears” (12:17). There was no way to redeem the situation. What had transpired was permanent, and no prayer could change that.
Moses
No one in Scripture knew God as intimately as Moses did. When Aaron, and particularly Miriam, got uppity about it, God let them know there was no comparison between them and Moses (Numbers 12:1-16). “With Moses will I speak mouth to mouth, not in dark speeches, and the similitude [likeness] of the Lord shall he behold” (12:8; cf Exodus 33:18-23). God and Moses knew each other extremely well. Joshua adds the postscript that “there arose not a prophet in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face” (Deuteronomy 34:10).
So we are surprised, I think, that God would be so “stubborn” as not to let Moses enter the Promised Land because of one mistake: at Kadesh-Barnea Moses struck a rock with his rod when he’d been told to speak to the rock to bring forth water (Numbers 20:8-12). God credited this to unbelief. Moses didn’t think speaking would work; he knew from experience that striking would. God issued the water, but He told Moses and Aaron, “[Because you handled it this way instead of the way I told you], you shall not bring this congregation into the Land which I have given them.”
In his farewell address, Moses told the people that God had canceled his reservation. “The Lord was angry with me and would not hear me”—suggesting God and Moses had argued over the matter, or Moses was importunate—”The Lord said to me, Speak no more to me of this matter. Get up to the top of Mount Pisgah, and look west, north, south, and east. See it with your eyes, for you will not go over this Jordan” (Deuteronomy 1:37; 3:26, 27; 31:2). Moses was not going with them. Joshua would lead them across the Jordan River into the Promised Land.
If there’s one Person you don’t want to get on the wrong side of, it’s God.
Samson
No doubt you’ve heard of Jeremiah, who was called to be a prophet before he was born (Jeremiah 1:5). Persons who don’t know much Scripture at all reference that verse to defend pro-life. I suspect they’ve picked it up secondhand and are passing it on because it’s the only scripture they know. I also suspect they don’t know much about the kind of life Jeremiah was forced to live. You can read his whole book in a few hours, if you want to be informed. He was a wonderful man of God, but, like most prophets, he lived a painful existence.
If you want to talk about someone called before he was born, then you really need to look at Samson (Judges 13:1 through 16:31). One whole chapter of the Bible is spent on the conception, pregnancy, and birth. Samson’s parents were childless when an angel appeared and told the wife she was going to have a son. While she was carrying him, she was to drink no wine or strong drink, eat nothing unclean, and afterward no razor was to come on the boy’s head because he was to be a Nazarite. Later, that baby boy Samson became a judge in Israel, and served in that office twenty years. Samson knew what it was to experience the power of God and to exercise great feats of strength. The problem came when he broke his Nazarite vow and allowed a razor to come upon his head. Afterward he went as at other times, but knew “not that the Lord had departed from him” (16:20).
I think Samson is the example most apt to come to mind when prayer is not answered. We think we have offended God, as Samson did, and, therefore, He must be far from helping us. When answers don’t come, we think there is something wrong with us or wrong with our prayer. And there may be. Sin is always a hindrance to prayer, in which case God says, “When you spread forth your hands, I will hide My eyes from you …. When you make many prayers, I will not hear” (Isaiah 1:15).
James says, “You have not, because you ask not. You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts” (James 4:2, 3). David said, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” But in David’s case, “God has heard me …. He has attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, who has not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me” (Psalm 66:18-20).
Whatever the perceived hindrance, it’s important that our life is in order and that our prayer is in order. And, if all is well, we should pray on, because, barring sin, God does answer in time, according to His will.
David
David, a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22), broke God’s heart by violating an innocent “lamb” (2 Samuel 12:3) and taking an innocent life (2 Samuel 11:1 through 12:25). God judged him and punished him. God told David ahead of time, the child conceived in sin would die (12:14). When the infant was not stillborn, but still breathing, David thought perhaps God was sparing him (12:22). But the child was “very sick” (12:15). “David therefore besought God for the child. David fasted, went in, and lay on night upon the earth” (12:16). As long as the child was still lingering, David refused food.
On the seventh day, the child died (12:18)—uncircumcised. He would’ve been circumcised on the eighth day. “Then David arose from the earth, washed, anointed himself, changed his clothes, came into the house of the Lord, and worshipped” (12:20), an act reminiscent of Job, who in the midst of it all, “worshipped,” saying, ”The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:20, 21).
Why was David’s prayer not answered? Because this was God’s punishment.
Again, when prayer is not answered, we are apt to assume that, like David, we must be out of God’s good graces. There must be hindering sin. Maybe there is! Or maybe we are rationalizing too much. That persons pray at all, in faith, should illustrate that their heart is in the right place—they are trusting God, even as the church prayed without ceasing for Peter when he was in harm’s way (Acts 12:5). Looking to God and casting ourselves and our needs on His mercy shows we are depending on Him for an answer.
DIVINE APPOINTMENT
Years ago, when a missionary, Amy Carmichael, learned her bosom friend and long-time coworker, Ponammal, had a terminal illness and was not expected to live, she grieved. Why, of course, they would pray for God to heal her. But, sadly, she confessed, “There was no liberty to pray.” Amy knew then that Ponammal’s days were numbered; this illness was God’s way of bringing her home to Him.
Some years after that, I had a similar experience when I learned my best friend had terminal cancer. Prayer simply wouldn’t come. This was not one of those times when “the heavens were brass,” and you plowed through anyway. There was simply no liberty. Even if the thought came to mind, it wouldn’t pass my lips. It couldn’t pass. It was as if the thing was fixed, and neither I nor anyone else could change what God had determined.
A male coworker told me tearfully of our dying friend, “I’m afraid this time he won’t make it.” He had made it so many other difficult and challenging times. But, no, not this time. We all felt it. This friend, the dying man’s wife, others, and I. There was no liberty to pray. We knew: this was it. And we acquiesced.
Later I remembered that my dying friend, who suffered a chronic condition (unrelated to the cancer), had told me he’d asked God to take him before he became a burden to his family. Evidently this appointment with death was the answer to his prayer, and we were not to interfere. I’d never had such an experience before (or after); but I had it this once, revealing to me God’s sovereignty over prayer.
“Spin carefully, spin prayerfully, but leave the thread to God.” ~Anonymous
Copyright © 2020 Alexandra Lee
Morning Light 