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Amazing Facts

Joe Crews

Unanswered Prayer

There's an estimated 80, 000 fortune tellers in the United States and every year Americans spend more than $200 million in consulting them about personal problems.

I'll be back in a moment with the amazing facts about problems and their solutions.

♪ Hello, this is Joe Cruz in the Amazing Facts broadcast, Facts Which Affect You.

You know, every year 30, 000 people die by their own hand in the United States, and 4 times, at least 4 times that many attempt suicide without succeeding.

This is the age of fear, instability, and hopelessness.

Jesus prophesied that men's hearts would be failing them for fear, and we see the results of that emotional turmoil in the mounting suicide records.

While thousands run away from life and its problems by killing themselves, countless others groped desperately for an answer to their frustrations.

In 1 year alone, Americans spend $200 million in consultations with fortune tellers and astrologers.

And friends, those millions of dollars were spent in vain searching for peace of mind and heart.

Every 1 of those problems could have been solved without the cost of a penny through prayer.

Now I am sure every person who has learned to trust in prayer could give a testimony to the miraculous providences of God.

The unlimited resources of heaven have been made available to meet the emergencies of mankind.

Somebody has defined prayer as the key and the hand of faith to unlock heaven's storehouse.

And millions of people, without knowing the secret of prayer even, have tried to meet their problems in human wisdom and strength, only to fail again and again.

Yet in spite of the thrilling record of the effectual power of prayer, almost everyone has felt at some time or other that His prayers were not really getting through to God.

Now today we want to study various reasons why God may not be able to hear us pray.

Now there is a reason if the heavens seem to be brass over our heads.

It's not natural or normal for prayers to bounce back unanswered from the courts of God.

Let's consider for a little bit now some hindrances to prayer, which most frequently bring this sense of useless petition.

The first reason on my list today is made clear in Psalm 66, verse 18.

The psalmist wrote, If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.

Now this indicates that known sin in the life will short-circuit the connection with heaven.

God cannot hear us if we deliberately separate ourselves from Him by transgression.

But this does not mean that God will hear no prayer of the sinner.

In fact, that heart cry of the publican will never go unheeded, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.

There is no depth from which we can't be lifted if we recognize our sinful condition and then cry out to God for help.

But if we willfully continue offending Him by our choosing to sin, there is no way for our prayers to be heard.

Now I am sure that nobody has confidence in the prayers of a man who persists in sin.

If we are sick, we call for the most godly man we know to come and pray for us.

In James 5, verse 16 we read, "...the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." So you see, a righteous man's prayers will be heard.

It must be understood that there are laws of prayer just as there are laws of nature, and the results of transgressing those laws are automatic and ininhabitable.

Just as surely as the light goes out when the switch is pulled, so the prayer is not answered if sin comes between.

Isaiah wrote this, "...your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that he will not hear." Now the second hindrance to effectual prayer is disbelief of God's Word.

Every promise we find in the Bible is conditioned upon the exercise of faith.

V.2 But let him ask in faith nothing wavering, For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind, and tossed.

For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord." James 1, 6, 7.

Now that is describing the up-and-down Christian.

He is not able to receive great things because he doesn't expect great things.

We have often heard the story of the woman who had read in the Bible that even a mountain could be removed into the midst of the sea through faith.

And it so happened that she lived by the ocean, and an ugly hill shut off her view of the water.

So 1 night she decided to ask God to remove that mountain, according to what she had read in the Bible.

And the next morning she woke up early and rushed out to take a look, and behold the hill was still there.

With a shrug of her shoulder she said, Ha, just as I expected.

And she had been answered according to her faith, and so it is with us.

Jesus said, In all things whatsoever ye shall ask, believing ye shall receive.

Now this promise is also conditioned by 1 other text in 1 John 5, 14, and this is the confidence that we have in Him that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us.

Now this means that we can't demand things from God, and especially things that are unreasonable.

All our requests must be submitted to the test of His will.

Sometimes I think we sort of put God on the spot with our prayers.

We make it very difficult for Him to answer by the very way we word the prayer.

Now suppose there are 2 men in sailboats leaving from the very same dock.

1 asks for the east wind, the other asks for a west wind.

Presumably He can look into the lives of those men, of course, and see which has the greatest need and the greatest faith.

So why should we not be willing to leave that final decision to His will for us?

After all, we dare not demand immediate answers according to our own specified needs because we can't really see into the future.

Sometimes we ask God for things which seem good in our own eyes but which would actually cause us injury or maybe even death.

And in His great love and kindness, God answers that request by saying, No, instead of Yes.

I am very thankful that some of my past requests were denied, But I became thankful only after the passing of years had proved that that was a mistaken prayer that I offered, and it would have hurt me if God had really answered it.

If my little boy comes to me and asks to play with my razor, I would say no every time.

Now he may not be able to understand why I say no.

And sometimes we ask God in our ignorance or in our innocence for something dangerous, and He says no.

How many times we also pout and say that God doesn't really love us because He doesn't answer our prayers.

Now this brings us to the third hindrance on my list.

We must not ask for selfish things or foolish things from God.

Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lust.

Once a fellow minister of mine was called to a certain home to pray.

The young father in that home seemed to be quite agitated.

He told the minister, Pastor, I have a very special request to make.

My rich uncle is on his deathbed, and I want you to pray that he'll leave his money to me when he dies.

Now friends, there is an example of asking amiss, a purely selfish request.

Jesus taught us to ask for our daily bread, and there is a great big difference between our needs and our desires, and God nowhere promises to grant all of our desires.

How very thankful we ought to be that This is true also.

If a man is too lazy to get out of bed for his breakfast, should he pray and ask God to send somebody to his room with a food on trays?

We can see why God doesn't answer foolish requests like that.

In a child, of course, we can understand an improper and untimely request, but we fail to see how childish our own prayers might appear in the sight of God.

I have heard people say they doubted the existence of God because He did not answer a certain prayer they offered.

You know, that reminds me of a little boy who was going to test God, and he took an iron exercise bar down in the cellar and asked God to turn it into solid gold.

And when it didn't change, his childish mind questioned the existence of God.

Let me tell you, it would amaze us to know how many adult Christians have done equally foolish things as that.

A skeptic stood up in a crowd 1 day and shouted, If there is a God, I challenge Him to prove it by striking me dead.

Well, everybody held their breath, and nothing happened.

She said, Sir, do you have any children in your home?

Would you kill 1 of them if he should hand you a knife and ask you to do so?" the woman asked.

I love my children, ' the skeptic answered.

"'Ah, and that's why God didn't strike you dead.

He loves you too much, ' she said." You know, sometimes we offer prayers that seem very noble and good, but underneath we may have some selfish motives in our heart.

We might say 1 thing with our lips and another thing in our heart.

A certain minister's little daughter was saying her prayers before going to bed.

It was late in the fall of the year and almost time for the snows to begin, and in her prayer she said this, and, Please, dear Lord, send the beautiful snow to keep the little flowers warm through the winter.

But as she climbed into bed, she was heard to murmur, That time I fooled him.

I want the snow so I can go sliding with my new sled." Charles Fenney, the great preacher, once told a church that they couldn't have a revival until the elders stopped lying to God in prayer.

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