Answer for Unanswered Prayers

7/31/2019 Answer for Unanswered Prayers

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ANSWER FOR UNANSWERED PRAYERS

Exodus 2:22-23

Chaplain Max Helton prayed beside the car of Dale Earnhardt prior to the start of the2001 Daytona 500. Earnhardt told Helton, "Just pray that I'll be wise in putting the

car at the right place at the right time . . . and be able to drive with wisdom."

Holding hands, they prayed for wisdom and safety. In that very race, Earnhardt losthis life in a final lap crash.We have all had the experience of unanswered prayer. We pray for God's healing for

a loved one. We pray for God to bring revival and renewal to our churches. We prayfor the suicide bombings to end and for our troops to come home. Why does nothing

seem to change when God has promised us, "Ask and you will receive"? Is Jesusbeing totally truthful when he tells us, "If you ask me anything in my name, I will do

it"?

We will never have all the answers to unanswered prayer, but the story of the

exodus in the Old Testament provides us with some important perspectives when weare struggling with the silence of heaven. In Exodus 2:23, Israel cries out for God to

deliver them from their bondage in Egypt. The people waited for twelve longchapters, a wait that must have seemed like forever, before God completely

answered their prayers. What we learn from their waiting will help us the next timewe are struggling with unanswered prayer or God's answer is not what we have

asked for or expected.

I. We need to remember that God is answering our prayers even before we

pray them.Before the people ever pray for deliverance, God has already begun the process of

providing a deliverer. A baby at the beginning of chapter two is the unknown answerto the prayer at the end of chapter two. Even when Moses goes from being a prince

in Egypt to a fugitive in Midian, there is a reminder that God has a special purposefor Moses's life. In Midian, Moses drives away a bunch of bullies who are harassing

the daughters of Jethro and he waters their sheep. It foreshadows precisely whatMoses is going to do for Israel he's going to confront the biggest bully of all and

then spend 40 years of his life taking care of God's sheep.

When you're waiting for an answer to prayer it helps to remember that God alreadyhas the answer worked out before we are even aware enough to know our need or

articulate the words of our prayers. God knows the beginning, middle, and end of

every circumstance and situation. Jesus reminds us that "your Father knows whatyou need before you ask him." Israel needed a deliverer and the Lord knew about it

before Israel even asked.

II. We need to remember God's care and concern even when our prayers are

not being answered.

God's complete answer to Israel's prayer in 2:23 doesn't come for twelve longchapters, but notice what follows immediately in verse 24 a reminder of God's

concern for his people. As soon as Israel "groans" and "cries," God "hears." God isimmediately touched by the cry of his people.

The name of "Yahweh" is prominent in the book of Exodus. When Moses asks for

God's name at the burning bush, God answers that his name is "I AM" (the first-person form of Yahweh) (3:14). What does that name mean? Why does the

disclosure of the personal name of the God of the universe sound like the old Abbottand Costello routine "Who's on first?" This name "I am" could mean self-existence;
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it could mean eternality, but those ideas are really too abstract for what is conveyedin this story. Yahweh is God's covenant name, and it means that He is the ever-

present helper who is there for his people. It means that God hears the cry of Hispeople as soon as the cry goes up.

You don't have to use a magic formula to get God's attention. You don't have to

build up enough faith to earn his answer. You don't have to weary God into givingin. God is concerned at the very moment we come to him with our needs andrequests because we belong to him.

III. We need to remember that when we pray, things may get worse beforethey ever get better.

In the story of the exodus, the children of Israel prayed and things got a lot worsebefore they ever started to get better.1 InExodus 5, Moses tells the Pharaoh, "Let

my people go!" The Pharaoh's response was not to say, "Thank you, Moses, forbringing this gross injustice to my attention. I'll start the paperwork to expedite

their release right away." His response was to take away the straw that the Hebrewshad used to make bricks. Moses's career as a labor union negotiator did not get off

to a brilliant start. The Pharaoh became more hard-hearted and oppressive thanever. Right before the ultimate deliverance at the Red Sea, Israel was between a

rock and a hard place the Red Sea in front of them and the Egyptian army behindthem. God chose not to answer fully and finally until things were as bad as they

could possibly be.God has the freedom to answer our prayers in ways that we don't anticipate or

understand. Jerry Sitser reminds us that prayer does not normally "send an arrow

straight to the target" but rather more often than not "shoots an arrow that curvesand ricochets and even appears to fall short."2 Because of a recent move, our family

has been praying for the home that we own in Ohio to sell for more than a year.

Then, we finally received an offer, had a contract, and our prayers were answered.While waiting for the deal to be finalized, a rain storm flooded the lower level of our

house and now our house is back on the market.

We can pray for our children to come back to the Lord and they become more

determined than ever to go the other way. We can pray for God to deliver a friend

from an addiction and observe the addiction grip them more tightly. We can pray forGod to meet our needs and watch our bank account get smaller.

We become frustrated or resentful (or perhaps even stop praying) in these situations

because we believe that God's promise to answer prayer is our guarantee of asmooth and easy life with no bumps in the road. We trust God and he fills the

orders. The reality is that God sometimes responds to prayer by bringing moredifficulty into our lives. That adversity deepens character, develops faith, and drives

us to more desperately seek God. The difficulty may even become the means bywhich God answers our prayers, just like it was for the Hebrew slaves down in

Egypt.

IV. We need to remember that unanswered prayer is not an indication ofGod's lack of power.

The delay in Israel's answer to prayer had nothing to do with God experiencing a

power outage. God's power is all over the book of Exodus. I like to envision theexodus story as a real-life "smackdown" between God and Pharaoh, not like those of

the fake variety that you see watching wrestling on television.
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In this contest, there is first of all a battle ofdueling words. In Exodus 5:1, Mosesgoes to Pharaoh and announces, "This is what the Lord says 'Let my people

go.'" Then in 5:10, the slave drivers announce, "This is what the Pharaoh says "No more straw to make bricks for these lazy Hebrews.'" There's a challenge here

whose word is going to stand?The next thing we see is a battle ofdueling snakes in Exodus 7. Aaron's rod

becomes a snake in front of the Pharaoh, but the Pharaoh isn't all that impressedbecause his magicians perform the same trick. But then, . . . Aaron's snake eats upthe Egyptian snakes. What's the point? The cobra was the symbol of the Pharaoh's

power, and the Egyptians worshipped cobra-deities that were supposed to protect

them. The Pharaoh isn't ready to admit defeat, but Aaron's snake had the first"power lunch" in history.

Then, there is a battle ofdueling deities in the story of the plagues inExodus 7-13.The plagues are not just neat special effects that spice up the story; they are

carefully designed polemics to stress the greatness of the Lord over the gods ofEgypt. The Egyptians believed that Hapi protected the Nile, and so God turned the

Nile into blood. They believed that Re was the god of the sun, and so God turnedout the lights. They believed that the Pharaoh was a god incarnate, and so God took

the life of his firstborn son.

Finally, at the Red Sea in Exodus 14, there is a battle ofdueling warriors, when

God the Divine Warrior bares his right arm and destroys the Egyptian army. Themost powerful army on earth in that day was no match for the Lord. It was said of

the Pharaoh of the exodus, "He will make a ruler of the land whom no one canattack."3 The Pharaoh found out the hard way who had real power.

Unanswered prayer doesn't void the omnipotence of God. There is nothing we canask God that is beyond his ability to accomplish, but the greatest demonstrations of

God's power are often found in his answers to our unanswered prayers. Bob Mitchellprayed for the safety of five young missionaries who went to the jungles of South

America in order to share the gospel with the Auca Indians, but Jim Elliott and hisfour companions were brutally murdered. Years later, Mitchell attended a conference

in Europe and met an evangelist who was one of the Auca Indians that had murderedElliott and the other missionaries.4 Only God could orchestrate that kind of answer

to an unanswered prayer.

We see in the exodus that the power of God is not something placed at Israel's

disposal with the flip of a switch or the pull of a lever. The how and when of God'sanswer to prayer is determined by what brings him the greatest amount of glory.

When God answered, it was done in a way so that even Pharaoh himself could notdeny that Yahweh was God over all. Some of the greatest demonstrations of God's

power we will ever experience come in God's answers to our unanswered prayers.We pray to the same God as these Hebrew slaves. Whether God's answer to our

prayers is "Yes," "No," or "Wait," his answers are always the perfect expression ofhis love and power in our lives.
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Answer for Unanswered Prayers