THE
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
ARTHUR
W. PINK
GOD’S
SOVEREIGNTY AND PRAYER
CHAPTER
EIGHT
1 John 5:14
(ESV) 14 And
this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything
according to his will he hears us.
THROUGHOUT this book it has been our
chief aim to exalt the Creator and lower the creature. The well-nigh universal
tendency, now, is to magnify man and dishonor and degrade God. On every hand it
will be found that, when spiritual things are under discussion, the human side
and element is pressed and stressed, and the Divine side, if not altogether
ignored, is relegated to the background. This holds true of very much of the
modern teaching about prayer. In the great majority of the books written and in
the sermons preached upon prayer, the human element fills the scene almost entirely:
it is the conditions which we must meet, the promises we must “claim”,
the things we must do, in order to get our requests granted; and God’s
claims, God’s rights, God’s glory are disregarded.
As a fair sample of what is being
given out today we add a brief editorial which appeared recently in one of the
leading religious weeklies entitled “Prayer, or Fate?”
“God in His sovereignty has ordained
that human destinies may be changed and molded by the will of man. This is at
the heart of the truth that prayer changes things, meaning that God changes
things when men pray. Someone has strikingly expressed it this way: ‘There are
certain things that will happen in a man’s life whether he prays or not. There
are other things that will happen if he prays, and will not happen if he does
not pray’. A Christian worker was impressed by these sentences as he entered a
business office, and he prayed that the Lord would open the way to speak to
someone about Christ, reflecting that things would be changed because he prayed.
Then his mind turned to other things and the prayer was forgotten. The
opportunity came to speak to the business man on whom he was calling, but he
did not grasp it, and was on his way out when he remembered his prayer of a
half hour before, and God’s answer. He promptly returned and had a talk with
the business man, who, though a church-member, had never in his life been asked
whether he was saved. Let us give ourselves to prayer, and open the way for God
to change things. Let us beware lest we become virtual fatalists by failing to
exercise our God-given wills in praying”.
The above illustrates what is now
being taught on the subject of prayer, and the deplorable thing is that
scarcely a voice is lifted in protest. To say that “human destinies may be
changed and molded by the will of man” is rank infidelity—that is
the only proper term for it. Should any one challenge this classification, we
would ask them whether they can find an infidel anywhere who would dissent from
such a statement, and we are confident that such a one could not be found. To
say that “God has ordained that human destinies may be changed
and molded by the will of man,” is absolutely untrue. “Human destiny” is
settled not by “the will of man,” but by the will of God. That which
determines human destiny is whether or not a man has been born again, for it is
written, “Except a man be born again he cannot see the
Turning back to the Editorial here
under review, we are next told, “This is at the heart of the truth that prayer
changes things, meaning that God changes things when men pray.” Almost
everywhere we go today one comes across a motto-card bearing the inscription “Prayer
Changes Things”. As to what these words are designed to signify is evident from
the current literature on prayer—we are to persuade God to change His purpose.
Concerning this we shall have more to say below.
Again, the Editor tells us, “Someone
has strikingly expressed it this way: ‘There are certain things that will
happen in a man’s life whether he prays or not. There are other things that
will happen if he prays, and will not happen if he does not pray.’” That things
happen whether a man prays or not is exemplified daily in the lives of the
unregenerate, most of whom never pray at all. That ‘other things will happen if
he prays’ is in need of qualification. If a believer prays in faith and asks
for those things which are according to God’s will, he will most certainly
obtain that for which he has asked. Again, that other things will happen if he
prays is also true in respect to the subjective benefits derived from prayer:
God will become more real to him and His promises more precious. That other
things ‘will not happen if he does not pray’ is true so far as his own life is
concerned— a prayerless life means a life lived out of communion with God and
all that is involved by this. But to affirm that God will not and cannot bring
to pass His eternal purpose unless we pray, is utterly erroneous, for the same
God who has decreed the end has also decreed that His end shall be reached through
His appointed means, and one of these is prayer. The God who has determined to
grant a blessing also gives a spirit of supplication which first seeks the
blessing. The example cited in the above Editorial of the Christian Worker and
the business man is a very sad one to say the least, for according to the terms
of the illustration the Christian Worker’s prayer was not answered by God at
all, inasmuch as, apparently, the way was not opened to speak to the business
man about his soul. But on leaving the office and recalling his prayer the
Christian Worker (perhaps in the energy of the flesh) determined to answer the
prayer for himself, and instead of leaving the Lord to “open the
way” for him, took matters into his own hand.
We quote next from one of the latest
books issued on Prayer. In it the author says, “The possibilities and necessity
of prayer, its power and results, are manifested in arresting and changing
the purposes of God and in relieving the stroke of His power”. Such an assertion
as this is a horrible reflection upon the character of the Most High God, who “doeth
according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the
earth: and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest
Thou?”(Daniel 4:35).
There is no need whatever for
God to change His designs or alter His purpose, for the all-sufficient
reason that these were framed under the influence of perfect goodness and unerring
wisdom. Men may have occasion to alter their purposes, for in their
short-sightedness they are frequently unable to anticipate what may arise after
their plans are formed. But this is not so with God because He knows the end
from the beginning. To affirm that God changes His purpose is either to
impugn His goodness or to deny His eternal wisdom.
In the same book we are told, “The
prayers of God’s saints are the capital stock in heaven by which Christ carries
on His great work upon earth. The great throes and mighty convulsions on earth
are the results of these prayers. Earth is changed, revolutionized, angels move
on more powerful, more rapid wing, and God’s policy is shaped as the
prayers are more numerous, more efficient”. If possible, this is even worse,
and we have no hesitation in denominating it as blasphemy. In the first place,
it flatly denies (Ephesians 3:11) which speaks of God’s having an “eternal purpose”.
If God’s purpose is an eternal one, then His “policy” is not being
“shaped” today. In the second place, it contradicts (Ephesians 1:11) which expressly
declares that God “worketh all things after the counsel of His own
will,” therefore it follows that, “God’s policy” is not being
“shaped” by man’s prayers. In the third place, such a statement as the above
makes the will of the creature supreme, for if our prayers shape God’s
policy, then the Most High’s is subordinate to worms of the earth. Well
might the Holy Spirit ask through the apostle, 34
"For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has
been his counselor?”, Romans 11:34 (ESV).
Such thoughts on prayer as we have
been citing are due to a low and inadequate conception of God Himself. It ought
to be apparent that there could be little or no comfort in praying to a God
that was like the chameleon, which changes its color every day. What
encouragement is there to lift up our hearts to One who is in one mind
yesterday and another today? What would be the use of petitioning an earthly
monarch, if we knew he was so mutable as to grant a petition one day and deny
it another? Is it not the very unchangeableness of God which is our
greatest encouragement to pray? It is because He is “without variableness
or shadow of turning” we are assured that if we ask anything according to His will
we are most certain of being heard. Well did Luther remark, “Prayer is not
overcoming God’s reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness.”
And this leads us to offer a few
remarks concerning the design of prayer. Why has God appointed
that we should pray? The vast majority of people would reply, In order that we
may obtain from God the things which we need. While this is one of the
purposes of prayer, it is by no means the chief one. Moreover, it considers
prayer only from the human side, and prayer sadly needs to be viewed
from the Divine side. Let us look, then, at some of the reasons why God
has bidden us to pray.
First and foremost, prayer has been
appointed that the Lord God Himself should be honored. God requires we
should recognize that He is, indeed, 15
“the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity” God requires that we shall
acknowledge His universal dominion: in petitioning God for rain, Isaiah
57:15 (KJV) Elijah
acknowledged His control over the elements; in praying to God to deliver a poor
sinner from the wrath to come, we acknowledge that 9“Salvation
is of the LORD;” “in
supplicating His blessing on the Gospel unto the uttermost parts of the earth,
we declare His rulership over the whole world
Jonah 2:9 (KJV).
Again; God requires that we shall worship
Him, and prayer, real prayer, is an act of worship. Prayer is an act of
worship inasmuch as it is the prostrating of the soul before Him; inasmuch as
it is a calling upon His great and holy name; inasmuch as it is the
acknowledging of His goodness, His power, His immutability, His grace, and
inasmuch as it is the recognition of His sovereignty, together with a
submission to His will. It is highly significant to notice in this connection
that the
Again; prayer redounds to God’s
glory, for in prayer we acknowledge our absolute dependency upon Him. When
we humbly supplicate the Divine Being we cast ourselves upon His power and
mercy. In seeking blessings from God we confess
that He is the Author and
Fountain of every good and perfect gift. That prayer brings glory to God is
further seen from the fact that prayer calls faith into exercise, and nothing
from us is so honoring and pleasing to Him as the confidence of our hearts.
In the second place, prayer is
appointed by God for our spiritual blessing, as a means for our
growth in grace. When seeking to learn the design of prayer,
this should always occupy us before we regard prayer as a means for obtaining
the supply of our need. Prayer is designed by God for our humbling. Prayer,
real prayer, is a coming into the Presence of God, and a sense of His
awful majesty produces a realization of our nothingness and unworthiness.
Again; prayer is designed by God for the exercise of our faith. Faith is
begotten in the Word (Romans 10:17), but it is exercised in prayer;
hence, we read of “the prayer of faith”. Again; prayer calls love into
action. Concerning the hypocrite the question is asked, “Will he delight
himself in the Almighty? Will he always call upon God?” (Job 27:10). But
they that love the Lord cannot be long away from Him, for they delight in
unburdening themselves to Him. Not only does prayer call love into
action, but through the direct answers to our prayers, our love to God
is increased— 1 I
love the Lord, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Again; prayer is designed by God to teach us the value of
the blessings we have sought from Him, and it causes us to rejoice the
more when He has bestowed upon us that for which we ask Him Psalms
116:1 (ESV).
Third, prayer is appointed by God
for our seeking from Him the things which we are in need of. But here a
difficulty may present itself to those who have read carefully the previous
chapters of this book. If God has foreordained, before the foundation of the
world, everything which happens in time, what is the use of prayer? If it is
true that
“of Him and through Him and to Him
are all things” (Romans 11:36), then why pray? Before replying directly
to these queries it should be pointed out how that there is just as much reason
to ask, What‘s the use of me coming to God and telling Him what He already
knows? What’s the use of me spreading before Him my need, seeing that He
already knows it? What’s the use of praying for anything when everything has
been ordained beforehand by God? Prayer is not for the purpose of informing
God, as if He were ignorant, (the Savior expressly declared “for your Father
knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him”( Matthew 6:8), but it
is to acknowledge He does know what we are in need of. Prayer is not
appointed for the furnishing of God with the knowledge of what we need, but it
is designed as a confession to Him of our sense of the need. In this, as
in everything, God’s thoughts are not as ours. God requires that His gifts
should be sought for. He designs to be honored by our asking, just as He
is to be thanked by us after He has bestowed His blessing.
However, the question still returns
on us, If God is the Predestinator of everything that comes to pass, and the
Regulator of all events, then is not prayer a profitless exercise? A sufficient
answer to these questions is, that God tells us to pray—“Pray without
ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). And again, “men ought always to pray”- -(Luke
18:1). And further: Scripture declares that, “the prayer of faith shall save
the sick”, and, “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much”
(James 5:15, 16); while the Lord Jesus Christ—our perfect Example in all things—was
preeminently a Man of Prayer. Thus, it is evident, that prayer is neither meaningless
nor valueless. But still this does not remove the difficulty nor answer
the question with which we started out. What then is the relationship between
God’s sovereignty and Christian prayer?
First of all, we would say with
emphasis, that prayer is not intended to change God’s purpose,
nor is it to move Him to form fresh purposes. God has decreed that certain
events shall come to pass, but He has also decreed that these events
shall come to pass through the means He has appointed for their accomplishment.
God has elected certain ones to be saved, but He has also decreed that these
ones shall be saved through the preaching of the Gospel. The Gospel,
then, is one of the appointed means for the working out of the eternal counsel
of the Lord; and prayer is another. God has decreed the means as well as the
end, and among the means is prayer. Even the prayers of His people are included
in His eternal decrees. Therefore, instead of prayers being in vain, they are
among the means through which God exercises His decrees. “If indeed all things
happen by a blind chance, or a fatal necessity, prayers in that case could be
of no moral value, and of no use; but since they are regulated by the direction
of Divine wisdom, prayers have a place in the order of events” (Haldane).
That prayers for the execution of
the very things decreed by God are not meaningless, is clearly
taught in the Scriptures. Elijah knew that God was about to give
rain, but that did not prevent him from at once betaking himself to
prayer, (James 5:17, 18). Daniel “understood” by the writings of the
prophets that the captivity was to last seventy years, yet when these
seventy years were almost ended, we are told that he “set his face unto
the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting
and sackcloth and ashes” (Daniel 9:2, 3). God told the prophet
Jeremiah 11 “For
I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to
prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and
pray to me, and I will listen to you, Jeremiah 29:11-12 (NIV).
Once more; in Ezekiel 36 we read of
the explicit, positive, and unconditional promises which God has made
concerning the future restoration of Israel, yet in verse 37 of this same
chapter we are told, 37 "Thus
says the Lord God: This also I will let the house of Israel ask me to do for
them: to increase their people like a flock,” Ezekiel 36:37 (ESV). Here then is the design of
prayer: Not that God’s will may be altered, but that it may be accomplished
in His own good time and way. It is because God has promised certain
things that we can ask for them with the full assurance of faith. It is God’s
purpose that His will shall be brought about by His own appointed means, and
that He may do His people good upon His own terms, and that is, by the
‘means’ and ‘terms’ of request and supplication. Didn’t the Son of God know for
certain that after His death and resurrection He would be exalted by the
Father? Assuredly He did. Yet we find Him asking for this very thing: “O
Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine Own Self with the glory which I had with
Thee before the world was” (John 17:5)! Did not He know that none of His people
could perish, yet He asked the Father to “keep” them (John 17:11)!
Finally; it should be said that
God’s will is immutable, and cannot be altered by our crying. When the mind of
God is not toward a people to do them good, it cannot be turned to them by the
most fervent and importunate prayers of those who have the greatest interest in
Him— “Then said the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet
My mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of My sight, and let
them go forth” (Jeremiah 15:1). The prayers of Moses to enter the Promised Land
are a parallel case.
Our views respecting prayer need to
be revised and brought into harmony with the teaching of Scripture on the
subject. The prevailing idea seems to be, that I come to God and ask Him
for something that I want, and that I expect Him to give me that which I
have asked. But this is a most dishonoring and degrading conception. The
popular belief reduces God to a servant, our servant: doing our bidding,
performing our pleasure, granting our desires. No; prayer is a coming to God,
telling Him my need, committing my way unto the Lord, and leaving Him to
deal with it as seemeth Him best. This makes my will subject to
His, instead of, as in the former case, seeking to bring His will into
subjection to mine. No prayer is pleasing to God unless the spirit actuating it
is, “not my will, but thine be done”. “When God bestows blessings on a
praying people, it is not for the sake of their prayers, as if He was inclined
and turned by them; but it is for His own sake, and of His own sovereign will
and pleasure. Should it be said, to what purpose then is prayer? it is
answered, This is the way and means God has appointed, for the communication of
the blessing of His goodness to His people. Although He has purposed, provided,
and promised them, yet He desires we ask Him, to give them, and it is a duty
and privilege to ask. When they are blessed with a spirit of prayer, it goes
well, and looks as if God intended to bestow the good things asked, which should
always be asked with submission to the will of God, saying, Not my will but
Thine be done” (John Gill).
The distinction noted above is of
great practical importance for our peace of heart. Perhaps the one thing that
exercises Christians as much as anything else is that of unanswered prayers.
They have asked God for something: so far as they are able to judge, they have
asked in faith believing they would receive that for which they had supplicated
the Lord: and they have asked earnestly and repeatedly, but the answer
has not come. The result is that, in many cases, faith in the effectiveness of
prayer becomes weakened, until hope gives way to despair and the closet is
altogether neglected. Is it not so?
It will surprise our readers when we
say that every real prayer of faith that has ever been offered to God has
been answered? Yet we unhesitatingly affirm it. But in saying this we must
refer back to our definition of prayer. Let us repeat it. Prayer is a coming to
God, telling Him my need (or the need of others), committing my way unto
the Lord, and then leaving Him to deal with the case as seemeth Him best. This leaves
God to answer the prayer in whatever way He sees fit, and often, His answer may
be the very opposite of what would be most acceptable to the flesh; yet, if we
have really LEFT our need in His hands, it will be His answer, nevertheless.
Let us look at two examples.
In John 11 we read of the sickness
of Lazarus. The Lord “loved” him, but
He was absent from
Turn to 2 Corinthians 12. The
apostle Paul had been accorded an unheard-of privilege. He had been transported
into
Does someone object that it is our
privilege to do more than spread our need before God? Are we reminded that God
has, as it were, given us a blank check and invited us to fill it in? Is it
said that the promises of God are all-inclusive, and that we may ask God for
whatever we want. If so, we must call attention to the fact that it is
necessary to compare scripture with scripture if we are to learn the full mind of
God on any subject, and as this is done we discover God has qualified the
promises given to praying souls by saying, “If we ask anything according to
His will He heareth us” (1 John 5:14). Real prayer is communion with God,
so that there will be common thoughts between His mind and ours. What is needed
is for Him to fill our hearts with His thoughts, and then His desires
will become our desires flowing back to Him. Here then is the
meeting-place between God’s sovereignty and Christian prayer: If we ask
anything according to His will He heareth us, and if we do not so
ask, He does not hear us; as saith the apostle James, “Ye ask, and
receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye might consume it upon your
lusts” or desires (4:3)
But didn’t the Lord Jesus tell His
disciples, 23 “Truly,
truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it
to you,” John 16:23 (ESV). He did; but this promise does not give praying souls carte
blanche. These words of our Lord are in perfect accord with those of the
apostle John— “If we ask anything according to His will He heareth us.” What is
it to ask “in the name of Christ”? Surely it is very much more than a prayer
formula, the mere concluding of our supplications with the words “in the
name of Christ.” To apply to God for anything in the name of Christ, it must
needs be in keeping with what Christ is! To ask God in the name of Christ is as
though Christ Himself were the suppliant. We can only ask God for what Christ
would ask. To ask in the name of Christ, is therefore, to set aside our
own wills, and accepting God’s!
Let us now amplify our definition of
prayer. What is prayer? Prayer is notso much an act as it is an attitude— an
attitude of dependency, dependency upon God. Prayer is a confession of
creature weakness, yea, of helplessness. Prayer is the acknowledgment of our
need and the spreading of it before God. We do not say that this is all there
is in prayer, it is not: but it is the essential, the primary element in
prayer. We freely admit that we are quite unable to give a complete definition
of prayer within the compass of a brief sentence, or in any number of words.
Prayer is both an attitude and an act, a human act, and yet there
is the Divine element in it too, and it is this which makes an
exhaustive analysis impossible as well as impious to attempt. But admitting
this, we do insist again, that prayer is fundamentally an attitude of
dependency upon God. Therefore, prayer is the very opposite of dictating to
God. Because prayer is an attitude of dependency, the one who really prays is submissive,
submissive to the Divine will; and submission to the Divine will means,
that we are content for the Lord to supply our need according to the dictates
of His own sovereign pleasure. And hence it is that we say, every prayer that
is offered to God in this spirit is sure of meeting with an answer or
response from Him.
Here then is the reply to our
opening question, and the scriptural solution to the seeming difficulty. Prayer
is not the requesting of God to alter His purpose or for Him to form a new one.
Prayer is the taking of an attitude of dependency upon. God, the spreading of
our need before Him, the asking for those things which are in accordance with
His will, and therefore there is nothing whatever inconsistent between
Divine sovereignty and Christian prayer.
In closing this chapter we would
utter a word of caution to safeguard the reader against drawing a false
conclusion from what has been said. We have not here sought to epitomize the
whole teaching of Scripture on the subject of prayer, nor have we even
attempted to discuss in general the problem of prayer; instead, we have
confined ourselves, more or less, to a consideration of the relationship between
God’s Sovereignty and Christian Prayer. What we have written is intended
chiefly as a protest against much of the modern teaching, which so
stresses the human element in prayer that the Divine side is almost
entirely lost sight of.
In Jeremiah 10:23 we are told “It is
not in man that walketh to direct his steps” (cf. Proverbs 16:9); and yet in
many of his prayers, man impiously presumes to direct the Lord as to His way,
and as to what He ought to do: even implying that if only he had
the direction of the affairs of the world and of the Church, he would
soon have things very different from what they are. This cannot be denied: for
anyone with any spiritual discernment at all could not fail to detect this
spirit in many of our modern prayer-meetings where the flesh holds sway. How
slow we all are to learn the lesson that the haughty creature needs to be
brought down to his knees and humbled into the dust. And this is where the
very act of prayer is intended to put us. But man (in his usual
perversity) turns the footstool into a throne, from whence he would gladly
direct the Almighty as to what He ought to do, giving the onlooker the
impression that if God had half the compassion that those who “pray” have, all
would quickly be put right! Such is the arrogance of the old nature even in a
child of God.
Our main purpose in this chapter has
been to emphasize the need for submitting, in prayer, our wills to God’s. But
it must also be added, that prayer is much more than a pious exercise, and far
otherwise than a mechanical performance. Prayer is, indeed, a divinely
appointed means whereby we may obtain from God the things we ask, providing we
ask for those things which are in accord with His will. These pages will
have been penned in vain unless they lead both writer and reader to cry with a
deeper earnestness than heretofore, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke
11:1).
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