“He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.” -Proverbs 28:9
How many times I have heard people say that they would pray for something for which they received no answer is more than I can recollect. Yet, on the other hand, when I looked at them through the eyes of Scripture, I could clearly see why no answers to their prayers ever came. The Lord was not going to bear witness to their lies. These were men and women who were of the world with one foot inside the church door and the other in the world. They were Christians in theory only, and worldings in practice (Proverbs 28:9).
How I would witness these self-deceived people who hide behind their vain prayers that went unheard confounded me.
There is a story told of the famous preacher Charles Finney from the 1700s, who told his story as to why he would not have others, that is professed Christians of his era, pray for him.
“Prevailing prayer is that which secures an answer. Saying prayers is not offering prevailing prayer. The prevalence of prayer does not depend so much on quantity as on quality. I do not know how better to approach this subject than by relating a fact of my own experience before I was converted. I relate it because I fear such experiences are but too common among unconverted men.
I do not recollect to have ever attended a prayer-meeting until after I began the study of law. Then, for the first time, I lived in a neighborhood where there was a prayer-meeting weekly. I had neither known, heard, nor seen much of religion; hence I had no settled opinions about it. Partly from curiosity and partly from an uneasiness of mind upon the subject, which I could not well define, I began to attend that prayer-meeting. About the same time I bought the first Bible that I ever owned, and began to read it. I listened to the prayers which I heard offered in those prayer-meetings, with all the attention that I could give to prayers so cold and formal. In every prayer they prayed for the gift and outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Both in their prayers and in their remarks, which were occasionally interspersed, they acknowledged that they did not prevail with God. This was most evident, and had almost made me a skeptic.
Seeing me so frequently in their prayer-meeting, the leader, on one occasion, asked me if I did not wish them to pray for me. I replied: “No.” I said: “I suppose that I need to be prayed for, but your prayers are not answered. You confess it yourselves. I then expressed my astonishment at this fact, in view of what the Bible said about the prevalence of prayer.
Indeed, for some time my mind was much perplexed and in doubt in view of Christ’s teaching on the subject of prayer and the manifest facts before me, from week to week, in this prayer-meeting. Was Christ a divine teacher? Did He actually teach what the Gospels attributed to Him? Did He mean what He said? Did prayer really avail to secure blessings from God? If so, what was I to make of what I witnessed from week to week and month to month in that prayer-meeting? Were they real Christians? Was that which I heard real prayer, in the Bible sense? Was it such prayer as Christ had promised to answer? Here I found the solution.” Charles continues,
“I became convinced that they were under a delusion; that they did not prevail because they had no right to prevail. They did not comply with the conditions upon which God had promised to hear prayer. Their prayers were just such as God had promised not to answer. That they were overlooking the fact that they were in danger of praying themselves into skepticism in regard to the value of prayer, was evident.”
For the rest of Charles Finney’s revelations and conclusions in finding the scriptural remedies, click here.
I know that many are looking for a culmination to this article, but if I leave you right here, isn’t that the objective, to lead you to the only One who can answer your prayers? So, therefore, I leave you in the hands of the only One who can answer your prayers when you seek him with your whole heart, mind, and strength (Jeremiah 29:11-13).
