In that regard there is something important somewhat hidden in our English translation of Matthew 7:7-8. I say, somewhat hidden, because we can see it if we open our eyes just a little bit. The word “knocketh” in verse 8 literally refers to a constant, unceasing knocking. It is not a once or twice knock, but a long steady knocking until we force the door to be opened to us. In the margin of my Thompson Chain Bible there is a reference to the word “importunity – #2840.” Following the links in that chain, the reader is taken to Luke 11 then to Luke 18 and beyond. Luke 11:5-8 – “And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.” Luke 18:1-7 – “He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. and shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?” The Bible is filled with exhortations like these to pray without ceasing – even to pray repetitively. “Praying always with all prayer and supplications in the Spirit.”
But the subject of “importunity” in regards to prayer raises some questions: For example, the Lord Jesus has already taught us in this sermon to avoid “vain repetition.” What do we have to do to reconcile the ideas of importunity and vain repetition? And if God truly loves His saints and children, why doesn’t He answer our prayers immediately. Is the Lord truly sovereign if we can or have to coerce God into serving us? Or why should we have so many exhortations to pray if the Lord really isn’t interested in answering? In fact, why doesn’t God always answer our prayers – period?
We’ve really raised only one question in several parts: Why doesn’t God answer my prayer? We can add addenda, like, “Why doesn’t God answer my prayer – right now?” Why hasn’t God answered that old prayer of mine of the past fifteen years?
First, let it be established that God hears every prayer that the Christian utters.
Being omniscient, the Lord knows even the thoughts of our hearts. “O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.” God is omniscience – He does hear every prayer. But that doesn’t mean God is obligated to respond to every prayer which He hears. Poetically speaking then, “God doesn’t hear the prayers of many.” God always acts in righteousness, and He always responds to righteousness, which may or may not mean that He’ll do what we are asking Him to do. So there are probably more prayers uttered every day which God “ignores,” as those that He “hears.”
Hebrews 11 reminds us that whatsoever is not of faith is sin in God’s holy sight. This eliminates the prayers of tens of billions of people throughout the world. This probably eliminates the prayers of anyone who has not been born again. Looking at the same subject from the opposing angle, James says, “Ye ask (referring to prayer), and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” Whatsoever prayer is not asked in faith is sin, and whatsoever is sin is contrary to God and therefore does not come under God’s blessing.
As one of the recipients of Jesus’ miraculous healings tried to explain to Jews: “God heareth not sinners.” The Lord is certainly not unaware of the blasphemous prayers of the ungodly, but He has no ear for them. I have nothing but pity for the Christ-rejecting worldling, whose wife is fighting for her life against cancer, when I hear that man pour out his request to God. But why should the Lord listen to him, when he has refused to listen to the Lord? What logic says that God must now bend his ear to the ground for him.
Psalm 66:18 correctly says, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” When the chief musician in Israel makes a statement like that, it tells us that he is talking first about God’s people, rather than Satan’s. When the Christian puts sinful things in his mind, Lord refuses to acknowledge his prayers. And this doesn’t necessarily mean that we are not talking about overtly sinful acts. It goes without saying that the foul-mouthed, dirty-minded Christian shouldn’t find a welcome-mat before the throne of God’s grace. But as the Saviour has already taught us, even to welcome the contemplation of sin is evil in His sight.
And furthermore, if I get to the point when I refuse to listen to God, He has said that He will not listen to me. Proverbs 28:9 – ”He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.” We could find a hundred different illustrations and applications of this. Does God “hear” the prayers of the Christian who stubbornly and deliberately spends God’s tithe on his own pleasures? Christ loves His church and has given Himself for it. Is the Lord excited about hearing the prayer of the man who hates His church, or who hurts or destroys it? We have had a professing Christian man or two who were members of our church, who had no right to expect God to answer a single prayer, because they treated their wives like cattle. I Peter 3:7 – “Ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.” I know professing Christians who have considered their wives to be too stupid to be properly honoured and respected. The man who abuses his wife – emotionally or physically – might as well not pray at all, because it is a waste of his time. He might plead the promise of Matthew 7:7-8, but his sin takes him out of the promise. “He that turneth away his ear from hearing law, even his prayer shall be abomination.”
Here, perhaps, are some reasons why our prayers are not immediately answered. But there could be many others, which the wisdom of God has not revealed to us. Perhaps to answer your prayer, would mean having to not answer the prayer of someone else. Perhaps the Lord is perfectly willing to grant your request next month, but this month it is important that it not be granted. The wisdom of God and the decrees of God are often beyond our grasp and understanding.
But these things still don’t answer the questions raised by the exhortations towards importunity. Why doesn’t the God, who loves his child, answer immediately? And yet we are admonished to keep knocking – and knocking – and knocking. Probably every person, and every prayer are different…..
But here are several answers to the questions about importunity.
God sometimes wants us to keep knocking and knocking, because we will never learn real dependence if the answer came quickly and easily. God is not a bully whose ego needs to be fed by our dependence upon Him. But He is God and we are, in fact, dependent upon Him. Importunity is an opportunity for us to remember – or to learn that fact. If as Christians all we had to do was utter a quick prayer and every wish became a reality, then God would become nothing more than a massive vending machine. He would become the central figure of a fable like Aladdin and his magic lamp.
When we forget that Jehovah is God and we are His creation, we soon begin building Towers of Babel, Titanics, and human empires. Americans have never been in bondage to any man, and we’ve lost what means to serve. Jehovah is not the servant, we are. To be a good servant is not a demeaning, debasing, degrading thing. There are some marvelous stories in English literature about butlers and maids, who were infinitely superior people to the people whom they served. And it was a part of their honor and character to simply serve. To be dependent upon a gracious Master may be a wonderful honor. And to be dependent upon the Lord our God is an honor above all other earthly honors. God says, ”I want you to learn to depend upon me, so ask me again. What was that thing for which you sought me in prayer? Let me hear you again.”
Second, the need to keep praying for things gives us time to examine our motives. James says, “You people ask things of God, but you receive them not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume them upon your lusts.” Okay, you’ve been asking God for something for a long time. Why have you been seeking this thing? Perhaps you should answer that question once again. Are the need and the reason still the same? Was it for the Lord’s glory, or was it for your needs and your emotions? Is this thing a genuine need, or is it really an extravagance? Maybe since you’ve not received it as yet, you should reconsider the request. If you possessed this item for which you prayed, would it strengthen or weaken you in your relationship to the Lord? Perhaps you should reexamine this request. A corollary to that would be that sometimes the Lord demands importunity give us time to expose our sins.
Perhaps the Lord has delayed granting our request because He wants us to remember that we aren’t as smart as we think we are. We are often like children who ask for things which would do us far more harm than good. We don’t know what is best. Generally speaking many of our overall lives show the same characteristics that could be seen in our high school and college days. There was a period when we didn’t know anything, and we knew that we didn’t know anything. We were freshmen then; we were children. But then, sometimes all of a sudden, we have the idea that we know a lot, if not everything. We’ve had a few college courses under our belts, or we’ve been sitting in church for a few months. Very quickly we go from knowing nothing to imagining that we know everything. First year students at college are called “freshmen,” and everything is new and fresh. The last years in college the students are “seniors” and the year preceding that they are “juniors.” But during the second year of university, the students are called “sophomores.” I love the etymology of word “sophomore,” and because of that I’ve shared it with you several times. I do it once again, because it fits with our subject. The word transliterated from two Greek words – “sophos” which means “skilled” or “wise,” and “moros” which means “dull” or “stupid.” A sophomore is a “stupid smart” person – he has one year of education under his belt and imagines that he is an expert. For someone to be sophomoric is to think that he is wise when in fact he is really kind of dumb. You and I will not graduate or leave this college of life until the Lord decides. Some of us are freshmen, and some are seniors, but that vast majority of us are sophomores. The Lord leaves us in that class, not granting our every request, so that we might learn that we have not yet learned.
And then sometimes, the Lord is aware that if He grants our request, we would forget to give Him the glory. So we are forced to pray, and pray, and pray, again and again, until it finally becomes something really precious to us. Now we have learned that it was not by might, nor by power, but by God’s grace that whatever it is has been granted. Now we are ready to humbly bow and thank the Lord for his blessing. “Thank you Lord for your delay.”