The Bible Study Hour

Guest (Male): If you're like most of us, you've made requests of God that have gone unanswered. After a while, we're tempted to give up on the prayer request, but that's not what the Apostle Paul advises us to do.

Welcome to the Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. James Boice, teaching you to think and act biblically. Today we continue our series on the book of Romans called "The Power of Salvation."

Throughout this study, we're learning the importance of living a disciplined faith. Obviously, prayer plays a very important role in a disciplined faith, but what are we to do when God doesn't seem to be answering our prayers? Paul struggled with this very question, yet the Bible teaches us that he kept on praying. Let's turn now to Romans Chapter 1, Verse 13 and see what he teaches us about unanswered prayer.

Dr. James Boice: There are very few people who have gone to church regularly who have not heard the story of the little boy who was praying for a bicycle for Christmas. His was a poor family, and when Christmas came, there was no bicycle. A friend of the family who didn't have a great deal of tact or sympathy at this point said to the little boy, "Well, I see that God didn't answer your prayer." The boy replied, "Yes, he did. He said 'no'."

Most of us are aware, I'm sure, that "no" is an answer every bit as much as "yes." And yet, it's always seemed to me that the story of the little boy about the bicycle really doesn't deal very deeply with the prayer problem. The reason is that a bicycle isn't essential. It's not spiritual. Many of our prayers, when they're concerned with things like that and go unanswered, are readily acceptable. We pray for things like bicycles, a better job, more money, or the resolution of some problem at work. If God does that for us, that's nice. We thank him. He's a gracious God. But if he doesn't, we understand that. God doesn't owe us those things at all.

The problem isn't in those areas. The problem is with prayers that are spiritual in nature. Prayers particularly that don't even concern ourselves, but prayers for other people, prayers for the salvation of someone that is lost, or the resolution of a particularly trying personal problem in the life of someone else. We pray for those things, and often those prayers go unanswered. That's where we really have the problem. That's why you see this matter of unanswered prayer is a problem, not for people who really don't know how to pray very well, but for people who do.

People who don't know how to pray, or as we could also say perhaps, beginners in the Christian life, don't have a great deal of problem. They don't expect a lot of prayer. They don't even know how to do it much. They pray and it's just an exercise they go through. If there's no answer, they're not greatly puzzled by it. They just aren't praying deeply. But it's the people who really do know how to pray that have the problem. They know the Lord. They know he's gracious. They know the promises. They know how to pray. And nevertheless, when they pray, they get no answers. The heavens seem closed.

What happens then? Some people become fatalistic in prayer. They just don't expect anything to happen. Now, we have an example of precisely this kind of prayer in the first chapter of Romans, and it's worth studying for what it teaches us about unanswered prayers. Paul had been praying that he might get to Rome. He wanted to visit the Christians there. He wanted to teach them and impart to them, as he says, some spiritual gift. For a considerable period of time, for years, God had not answered his prayer. He says that he was hindered from doing it. In our verse, he was prevented from doing so until now.

And so we ask, why was that? The first thing we need to understand about this, of course, is that this was an exceptional man who was praying, and it was a good prayer. Just think about that a little bit. Remember that this is the Apostle Paul who is praying. An apostle is a specially chosen one of Jesus Christ. I don't mean to suggest by that that just because Paul was an apostle, he was sinless. Of course, he wasn't. And I certainly don't mean to suggest that he never prayed wrongly. We know he did.

There's one great example of that in Acts. He had been praying to go to Jerusalem, bearing the gifts of the Gentile churches. There was a great rift between the Jewish and Gentile churches. Paul thought that if he collected gifts from all the Gentile churches he had founded where there was a measure of prosperity and took them to Jerusalem where the Christians were living in poverty because of a famine, he'd help to bridge that gap. He wanted to be the great ambassador of reconciliation.

And yet, as we read Acts, it seems that that isn't what God had for him. We would say that wasn't God's perfect plan for his life. God warned him not to go. After he did go and was in Jerusalem, the Lord Jesus Christ even appeared to him personally in a vision on one occasion and said, "Leave Jerusalem immediately." It was a categorical command, and Paul didn't do it. He stayed on and he was arrested and imprisoned, and we know the rest of the story. So, Paul certainly was not exempt from mixing up his own desires in his prayers.

And yet, that isn't quite the whole story. Paul was an apostle. He was a man who lived close to the Lord. At times, he wrote by inspiration and therefore inherently. If ever there was anybody who would pray rightly, it would be an apostle. And yet, his prayers are not answered. Not only that, but Paul prayed correctly. That is, his prayers were proper. It's not a theological treatise on prayer. It's not explaining to us how we should pray and how we should approach God and all of that. It's merely a model for prayer, and somewhat of an indirect one at that, Paul merely referring in some instances to the things he had been praying for.

Nevertheless, he does pray rightly. When we study it, we see that his prayer was to God the Father. Verse 8: "First, I thank my God." It was a personal thing. Secondly, it was through Jesus Christ. That is, on the basis of his atonement. Jesus Christ, by his death, has opened the way into the presence of God. Thirdly, although Paul doesn't say so, it was undoubtedly also in the Holy Spirit. That is, it was a spiritual prayer.

In the second chapter of Ephesians, verse 18, Paul draws all three members of the Godhead together in a great classical statement about prayer. He says, "For through him," that is through Jesus Christ, "we both," that is Jews and Gentiles, "have access unto the Father by one Spirit." You have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit involved, and Paul certainly was praying along those lines when he prayed to get to Rome.

Then thirdly, I want you to see that not only was this an apostle praying and not only was it a proper prayer theologically considered, it was also a proper prayer in terms of its content. Paul was praying for the right things, that is, the spiritual well-being of the Christians in Rome. We can imagine a situation where he might have prayed selfishly. Paul might have said to God, "Now, I have been working very hard here in this missionary work, traveling around from city to city and planting churches, and I've been doing this for many, many years. I haven't had a sabbatical. I haven't even had a decent vacation. I think I'd like to do that, and one of the places I'd like to go is Rome. I've never seen Rome."

"The tour they're offering here in Ephesus is 14 days in the capital of the empire, staying in a first-class hotel, and I think I'd just like to do that to get a little bit of rest." That might have been a proper prayer, though a selfish one, but that is not what Paul was praying. Paul was actually praying to be allowed to do more work. He said, "I want to go to Rome in order that I might minister to these Christians spiritually, impart to them some spiritual gift." He means to teach them, to do personally the same sort of thing that he's trying to do here in the writing of the letter.

Even then, his object was right. He wasn't praying to teach them in order that he might have a bigger congregation, a wider influence, or a foothold in the capital. He wanted to do that in order that they might become strong, that they might be strengthened as some of our texts say. So you see, here's an apostle praying rightly for the right things, and yet in spite of that, his prayer is unanswered, at least for a time.

We say, well, why is that? How do we understand it? How do we understand it in Paul's case, and what we're really concerned about, how do we understand that in our own prayer life when the same thing happens? Paul doesn't explain here why that may be. He only says in the words of our text, "I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I planned many times to come to you, but have been prevented from doing so until now in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles."

If we had been there when he was dictating the letter and if we had stopped him at that point and said, "Paul, now please explain to us as far as you understand it, why is it that you've been hindered in getting to Rome?" I'm sure he would have had some explanations. As a matter of fact, as we're going to show later, he does give us one in the 15th chapter, but he doesn't do that here. He just mentions this in passing. That may be significant. It certainly is an open door for us to think broadly about why it is that God often doesn't answer what seem to be perfectly proper and spiritual prayers that we utter.

Now, let me suggest a few of the reasons. The first is this: God frequently does not answer our prayers in order to show us that we are not as necessary to the work of God for which we're praying as we think we are. Now, that's clearly true in Paul's case, isn't it? Here Paul is praying that he might get to Rome in order to minister spiritually to these Christians, in order that they might become strong. Now, that is proper. That would have been a good thing, and eventually, Paul did that. As we know, he got there and he did bear that kind of a ministry.

But now, it is equally evident that in spite of the fact that Paul had not gotten to Rome, the Christians there were doing quite well. That is, quite well without him. The church had not been founded by an apostle. No apostle had visited it up to this point so far as we're aware. Paul certainly was not aware of any such visit. We're not even aware that they had had any particularly great teacher in their midst. And yet, as Paul himself says in verse 8, they had become strong in faith, so much so that this strong faith of the Christians at Rome was being reported all over the world.

Now, I don't want to be misunderstood at that point. Certainly, these Christians would have benefited from Paul's teaching, and they did benefit from his teaching. Certainly, one of the great gifts of God to the church is pastors and teachers and other strong leaders. We need that as well as those in ancient times. All those are great blessings. But the point I'm making is that it was not necessary for Paul to minister personally, and he didn't. Even without him, this church had grown and become quite strong.

Now, I don't want to suggest that this is something Paul himself necessarily learned from having his prayer to visit Rome denied. As a matter of fact, I rather doubt it. But I do think it's something that we need to learn because often, it's the case. I think you can search your own heart for the way you pray. Often, I think it's the case that when we pray, we really pray for God's blessing through us. Or we pray for God's blessing upon what we are doing.

Again, it's very easy to be misunderstood when you begin to talk along these lines. Certainly, we should pray for God's blessing upon what we're doing. But isn't it the case that too large a percentage of our prayers concerns our own ministry and not nearly enough what God is doing elsewhere through other people? Good prayer is praying for the right things to be done through other people. One thing we do in prayer, as the Lord himself suggested, is ask that God might raise up laborers for his vineyard. It's in response to prayers like that that God works. That humbles us because it shows us that the work doesn't have to be done through us, and it exalts God because it's in response to prayers that seek his blessing that the blessing comes.

Hudson Taylor was one who learned that early in his ministry. He wanted to go to China, you know, and he had come to believe as a young man that when it says in the Bible, "Owe no man anything," it meant it literally. Christians were never to be in debt. So he determined that that would not be true of Christian work either. He never overextended himself. He would only do what he prayed for and God gave him the money to do. He learned some of that from George Mueller, the founder of the faith orphanages in England.

And so he prayed that he might get to China and that God would provide for his support while he was there, and God did it. He found himself in China. Several years after he was there, he had a burden for China because of the greatness of that country. It had 11 provinces, and there was Mongolia in addition, 12 great sections of China in all. He conceived the burden of praying that God would raise up two missionaries for every one of those sections of that great country.

Now, he had no missionary organization. He had no finances. He had no way of providing for them even if the missionary should come. But he began to pray for that, that God would send the 24 missionaries and the means to support them. That's what God did. Those missionaries came, the money came, the missionaries went out. That prayer was so blessed that those original 24 missionaries grew into the thousands that later went to China under the auspices of the China Inland Mission. The story of the China Inland Mission during those days is a great missionary story.

Now he asks the question: Was Hudson Taylor necessary to that work? The answer is yes, in a sense he was. He prayed for it. But the point I'm making is that he didn't do the work personally. Sometimes when we pray, the lesson God wants to give us is that we personally are not so necessary for God's blessing as we think we are, but that God may very well be working and desire to work through other people. So, that's the first lesson.

Now, the second is this: When God refuses to give us a positive answer to our prayer, quite often it's because he has other work for us to do. I said earlier that Paul gives an explanation of God's delay in letting him get to Rome in the 15th chapter. As he gets toward the end of his letter, he's explaining what he's been doing. He says that God had used him to spread the gospel throughout all the cities of Asia and Greece. Then he refers to a text from Isaiah that is a prophecy that those who were not Jews, that is the Gentiles, would hear the gospel.

He quotes it because he says, in effect, "God has been using me to fulfill this prophecy." Isaiah 52:15 says, "Those who were not told about him," that is the Gentiles who did not have the benefit of the Jewish Scriptures and who therefore did not know about the Messiah who was to come, "those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard," that is up to this point, "will hear and will understand." Paul says, "I was the fulfillment of that prophecy." And then quite unexpectedly, having said that, he says in verse 22 of that chapter, "This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you."

So you see what he's saying is, "God had another plan for me. God had called me as a fulfillment of this prophecy to bear the gospel to the Gentile cities, and I've been doing that, and that is why I did not come to Rome." Now, let's apply that personally. Here's a man who is in an unrewarding job, as many jobs are. He's praying that God will change it. He says to the Lord, "Lord, this is unfulfilling, and I'm not very happy here. I certainly have gifts and talents, I believe, that I could use more fully elsewhere, and I would really like another job."

So he prays for it, but nothing opens up. As a matter of fact, he prays for it for years. He seems stuck in the same place. He's puzzled by it. He says, "Doesn't God answer prayer?" Well, God is not answering that prayer in the way he's praying. We say, "Why is that? Why doesn't God do it?" Now, we don't know why. It's a hypothetical situation, but there are a number of explanations that can be given.

Perhaps there is some coworker there in the same job or who works next to him in the plant or at a desk that needs to hear the gospel, that's going to respond to Christ, and so God has his man there in order to bear testimony. Perhaps a great moral issue is going to come up in the plant, and there's going to be a choice between right and wrong, and the outcome is going to be important. Here's a Christian who is placed there to do the right thing, to bear the right witness.

Perhaps—this is perhaps the most difficult thing of all to receive—but just perhaps, God wants to show that his grace is sufficient in a person like that even though the work isn't fulfilling. You see, as long as things go well for us and everything is what we want, it doesn't say very much about the grace of God. But if we're in a difficult spot, if we're doing work that's unfulfilling, drab, or repetitive day after day, if we're frustrated by it, and if in circumstances like that, drawing on the grace of God, we prove his sufficiency, well then, glory is given to God that is not given to God in any other way.

Perhaps it's for reasons like that, to do work like that, that God withholds his answer. You see, when you and I pray and prayers aren't answered, one of the things we have to ask is whether God wants us to shift our thinking from what we would like, what God is withholding, to what he has actually given us in order that we might do that more effectively.

Now, there's a third reason why God often withholds an answer to prayer, why the answer doesn't come. That has to do with spiritual warfare. The Apostle Paul, when he wrote to the Corinthians in the second of those two letters, says to them that there was given him what he calls a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. Then he tells what he did about it. He prayed that God would remove this thorn, and God did not do it. Instead, God said, "My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness."

You see, that's an example of what I said earlier, with the addition of the fact that Paul is lifting it to a spiritual level. He's saying, "You see, this is not just a matter of what serves my own convenience or what would be helpful to me, but there's a spiritual battle going on, and God is demonstrating in me that his strength is sufficient in spite of Satan's onslaughts."

I'll give you another example. In the book of Daniel in the 10th chapter, we find Daniel praying for insight into a vision that he's received. The vision had to do with suffering that was going to come upon his people in future days, and he didn't understand it. He didn't understand the reason for it. And so he prayed. There was no answer. He prayed earnestly. He prayed so earnestly he was sick. He prayed for three weeks, and it was only at the end of the three weeks that an angel appeared to give him the explanation.

The angel said, "I started out with the answer as soon as you started praying, but a spiritual being," he calls him the prince of Persia, "resisted me." Now, says the angel, "The reason I was able to come through is that God sent the Archangel Michael, and he helped me." Now, I admit there's a lot about that I don't understand. I don't understand why spiritual things should have temporal delays. But that's what it says. And as long as that's true, even though...