UNANSWERED PRAYER

LAMENTATIONS 3:4

A. "THOU HAST COVERED THYSELF WITH A CLOUD THAT OUR PRAYER SHOULD NOT PASS"
  1. It may seem very strange to some of us that there are times when we pray:
    1. Yet, we receive no answer to our prayer
    2. Our prayers seem to go no farther than the place they were made
  2. Then we become depressed:
    1. We will say to ourselves, "What is the use of praying anyway?"
    2. We begin to lose interest in prayer; soon prayer becomes a side issue with us
B. THERE ARE CERTAIN FACTS ABOUT PRAYER WE KNOW
  1. God wants us to pray:
    1. "Call unto me, and I will answer thee" - Jer. 33:3
    2. "Then shall ye seek me, and find me" - Jer. 29:12-13
    3. "Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me" - Ps. 50:15
  2. It is a sin not to pray:
    1. "Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord" - Ps. 53:4
    2. "Ye have not, because ye ask not" - James 4:2
    3. "Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name" - Ps. 79:6; Jer. 10:25
  3. Yet the Bible makes it very clear, that there are prayers which God will not hear:
    1. Sin is at the bottom of most of our unanswered prayers - it separates from God - Is. 59:1-3; "If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me" - Ps. 66:18; Prov. 28:9
    2. Our ignorance of what is good for us is another contributing factor to unanswered prayers - "Ye know not what ye ask" - Matt. 20:22; "For we know not what we should pray for as we ought" - Rom. 8:26
  4. But there are other reasons which are known to God alone just why our prayers remain unanswered:
    1. It may be because we have failed to do our part faithfully. Only when we are exercising the intelligence God gives us can we ask for divine aid
    2. It is only when we arouse all our strength that we can claim the help of omnipotence.
    3. Some of our prayers are refused because they are unwise - Examples: Some of the disciples asked the Lord to let fire fall from heaven and destroy the people that refused to give them hospitality - Luke 9:55; the mother of two of the disciples requested of the Lord that they should sit one on the right side and one on the left - Matt. 20:21
C. A SPECIAL LESSON FOR GOD'S PEOPLE
  1. Unanswered prayer:
    1. God loves for us to pray; the Bible makes that truth abundantly clear
    2. It is a sin to neglect prayer - that too is very clear
  2. It is also very clear that some prayers remain unanswered - why:
    1. Sin in the heart is one of the reasons - it is sin that separates from God - Is. 59:1-3
    2. Our ignorance of either God's will or what is good for us are a great barrier to our prayers
    3. Then, too, there are times and circumstances that delay God's answers to our prayers
    4. I know of cases where the answer to some parents prayers for the salvation of their children did not come in their lifetime - but it came after that
    5. I know of other instances where a wife prayed for twenty years for the salvation of her husband, then the answer came - he gave his heart to God and said to her, "your prayers are answered"
  3. So let God's children take courage and let them not cease to pray:
    1. "And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray and not faint" - Luke 18:1
    2. "Watch ye, therefore, and pray always" - Luke 21:36
  4. If God does not answer our prayers at every turn, he will hear them in time just the same


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