18677760 psalm-27-verse-7-commentary

PSALM 27 VERSE 7 COMMENTARY
Written and edited by Glenn Pease
7 Hear my voice when I call, O LORD;
be merciful to me and answer me.
1. It is extremely frustrating when it seems like God is not even listening to your
prayer, and that is how David is feeling at this point. It is surprising, for he has been
so positive and optimistic up to this point, and he was acting as if every prayer he
uttered was answered on the spot. Now, all of the sudden, he is pleading for God to
pay attention to his cry for help. He is praying for his prayer, and asking that it
might be heard. His theme in this moment of prayer is the mercy of God. He does
not tell us why he suddenly feels the need for God to be merciful to him. It seems
that God has been more than merciful in allowing him to face an army of vicious
attackers without fear, and come out a winner with awesome odds against him. Why
he is now so fearful that God's mercy will forsake him is a mystery, but it reveals
what is a true emotional roller coaster that believers go through. At any moment a
believer can be struck with the emotion of doubt and fear. It is one of the paradoxes
of the believer's life. He can be riding high in victorious faith, and then suddenly feel
the black cloud of negative emotions shutting out the light of the sun. He can come
away from a service where he shouted in praise to God for his grace and love, and
then while riding home feel a gloom coming over him because of his sin or failure, or
any number of negative thoughts that rob him of the joy of his salvation. This seems
to be what is happening to David at this point. This positive Psalm suddenly turns to
a negative plea for help.
1B. When life takes a turn to the negative side our prayers tend to become very self
centered, and this is normal, as it was here with David. We feel a need, and that
need sometimes dominates us so that our prayers are all about us and our need.
There is no intercession here for anyone else in their need, but only his own that
takes center stage. Self-centeredness is sometimes a place where we need to be, for
we are not much good for anyone else until we get right ourselves.
2. Newell C. McMahan has written a poem about how we can feel so negative about
our prayers not being answered. I will share a part of it. He wrote-

DO YOU EVER DESPAIR?
WHEN IT SEEMS GOD DOESN'T ANSWER YOUR PRAYER?
DO YOU EVER PRAY EARNESTLY FOR GOD TO MEET A NEED IN YOUR LIFE,
AND YOU PRAY FERVENTLY TO OVERCOME ALL HINDRANCES AND STRIFE?
WHEN YOU HAVE FINANCIAL NEEDS AND THE HEAVEN SEEMS TO BE BRASS,
AND IT SEEMS GOD ANSWERS ALL OTHERS PRAYERS BUT OURS HE SEEMS TO PASS.
HAVE YOU PRAYED AND PRAYED AND DONE YOUR BEST TO PRAY THRU,
WHEN YOU HAVE CONFESSED ALL SIN AND DONE ALL THAT YOU KNOW TO DO.
WHEN YOU HAVE DONE EVERYTHING THE BIBLE SAYS IN TRYING TO PRAY,
WHEN YOU HAVE EXHAUSTED YOUR RESOURCES AND DON'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY.
DO YOU EVER COME TO THE POINT OF SEEMINGLY UTTER DESPAIR,
WHEN YOU PRAY AND GOD DOESN'T SEEM TO ANSWER YOUR PRAYER?
DO YOU THINK GOD HAS FORGOTTEN YOU AND LEFT YOU TO FEND ALONE,
OR DO YOU BELIEVE GOD IS STILL ALIVE AND STILL SITTING ON HIS THRONE?
3. David records his negative emotions as well as his positive emotions so that their
is an honest balance in the picture he paints of the believer's life. It would be
unrealistic if the Bible portrayed the believer's life as one big joyous high of love and
faith, with no valley of doubt and fear to balance it out. David was just like all of us
in that he had his downs as well as ups, and he actually expresses depths of
depression and despair that most of us never experience. God is using David to
cover the whole spectrum of human experience in order to leave no one out,
however radical their emotional swings. However you may feel, there is a Bible
verse somewhere to match it. If all that David wrote was just like the beginning
verses of this Psalm, we could not find ourselves in it, and it would not have a
message for us, for we just cannot live on the clouds and mountain tops with nothing
be sunshine and roses. We may get there, but we cannot stay there. We would like to
stay there and be like the disciples who went with Jesus to the Mount of
Transfiguaration. It was so glorious that they wanted to build chapels there and stay
there, but Jesus took them back down to a world of pain and suffering where they
were confronted with their lack of power to change things. Jesus refused to give his
disciples hope that they could live on the heights all the time. He sent them into a
world of great need where they too would suffer a great deal in striving to meet
those needs. If you are looking for a perpetual high, you wont find it in the Old or
New Testament.
4. It is, no doubt, a major reason for depression to enter the believer's life when he
or she does not get an answer to the prayer they have been praying for some time.
Spurgeon wrote, "The voice which in the last verse was tuned to music is here

turned to crying. As a good soldier, David knew how to handle his weapons, and
found himself much at home with the weapon of "all prayer." Note his anxiety to be
heard. Pharisees care not a fig for the Lord's hearing them, so long as they are
heard of men, or charm their own pride with their sounding devotions; but with a
genuine man, the Lord's ear is everything. The voice may be profitably used even in
private prayer; for though it is unnecessary, it is often helpful, and aids in
preventing distractions. Have mercy also upon me. Mercy is the hope of sinners and
the refuge of saints. All acceptable petitioners dwell much upon this attribute. And
answer me. We may expect answers to prayer, and should not be easy without them
any more than we should be if we had written a letter to a friend upon important
business, and had received no reply."
5. No answer to our prayer leads to anxiety, and sometimes to panic, in fear that it
will never be answered. It is no comfort to say sometimes God says no, or wait, or
forget it. We want an answer, and so we cry out for God to be merciful by giving us
some meaningful answer, and not leave us hanging. Barnes wrote, "The phrase
“when I cry with my voice” refers to the fact that he prayed audibly or aloud. It was
not mental prayer, but that which found expression in the language of earnest
entreaty." Calvin adds, "By the word cry, he expresses his vehemence, as I have
elsewhere said, that he may thereby move God the sooner to help him. For the same
purpose, also, he a little after mentions his misery, because the more the faithful are
oppressed, the more does their very need induce God to extend his favor towards
them."
5B. For a study on unanswered prayer see Appendix A.
6. What we have here is another aspect of temporal salvation. He has been saved in
body from all his foes, and they have fallen by the way, and God has kept him safe
and secure. Now he has another battle where he needs help, and that is in the realm
of the mental rather than the physical. He needs salvation from his emotions that
lead him to depression and doubt. Do believer's have doubt and depression? You
bet they do, and they need saved from these pits that rob them of the joy of their
salvation.
7. The mercy of God is what he appeals to, for he is not worthy of God's protection
from all the troubles of life. He knows he deserves some hardships and negative
feelings, but he cries out to God to be merciful, and not let him experience all that
his sins deserve. He has experienced the mercy of God over and over, and he could
have written this poem that comes to us from Annie Johnson Flint.
Yea, “new every morning,” though we may awake,
Our hearts with old sorrow beginning to ache;

With old work unfinished when night stayed our hand
With new duties waiting, unknown and unplanned;
With old care still pressing, to fret and to vex,
With new problems rising, our minds to perplex
In ways long familiar, in paths yet untrod,
Oh, new every morning the mercies of God!
His faithfulness fails not; it meets each new day
New guidance for every new step of the way;
New grace for new trials, new trust for old fears,
New patience for bearing the wrongs of the years,
New strength for new burdens, new courage for old,
New faith for whatever the day may unfold;
As fresh for each need as the dew on the sod;
8. Unfortunately, David woke up this morning and felt the lack of mercy, and that is
why he is crying out for more of what he has been blest with so many mornings
before. He actually did have the mercy of God every morning, for every day we are
alive is due to the mercy of God, but we don't always feel it, and sometimes the basic
mercies of God are not enough to comfort and strengthen us in particular battles we
must fight. The everyday mercies of God are blessings to everyone, and we are to
daily thank God for them, but they do not meet the specific needs we might have.
Hebrews 4:16 says, "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we
may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." There are times when we
need these two important things from God, which is his mercy and his grace. They
are not automatic, and so we need to come to the throne of God pleading for them
just as David is doing here.
9. Pink writes about the sudden reverses that can happen to believers. "For a time-perhaps
for years-the smile of Providence is upon him, and then all is drastically
altered. One trouble follows swiftly upon the heels of another, until the sorely tried
soul is ready to say with Jacob, "all these things are against me" (Gen. 42:36). The
strain of financial reverses and family bereavements undermines his health, and
Satan takes full advantage of his low spirits and shattered nerves. Thoroughly
dejected, he asks, "where are Thy former loving kindnesses?" (Psa. 89:49). " What
"changes" the real Christian experiences in his faith! On some occasions his heart
goes out instinctively to God so that he can exclaim, "I will trust and not be afraid"
(Isa. 12:2); but at other times he is filled with doubts and fears, and is quite unable
to lay hold of the Divine promises."

10. Crying out for the mercy of God is a paradox. It is wonderful that God is a God
of mercy. In fact he delights in mercy as we see in Micah 7:18-19 "Who is a God like
unto you, that pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of
his heritage? He retains not his anger forever, because he delights in mercy. He will
turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and you
will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." The paradox is that one has to feel
guilty and condemned for his sinfulness to cry for mercy. In other words, one is
caught in mixed emotions of sorrow for sin, and also gladness that there is a God
who will forgive them. In the previous verse David is shouting and singing for joy,
and now he is full of anxiety and gloom as he cries out for the mercy of God. The
good news far outweighs the bad news of this Psalm, but the fact is, David has to
experience the bad news as well as the good.
11. One thing, among many, that we have in common with God is that we also
delight in mercy. We delight in mercy received, and God delights in mercy given. He
gives and we receive, and everybody is happy with mercy. It is to be one of our
greatest delights that God does not delight in judgment as he delights in mercy. Woe
unto us if he had as much pleasure in judging sin as he has in forgiving it. Thank
God that every person in history has the opportunity to pray, "God be merciful to
me a sinner."
12. J. C. Philpot wrote, "God delights in mercy. It is not drawn from him
unwillingly; it is not forced out of him even by importunity; it is not dragged out of
his heart by the cries of his children; but he delights in it as being his darling
attribute, the very pleasure of God being in showing mercy to the miserable. How
hard it is for us to believe this until mercy visits the soul and a sweet sense of it is felt
in the conscience. How we represent to ourselves God in his anger, in his justice, in
his dreadful displeasure against sin and sinners; how unable to believe that there is
mercy for us, and that he delights in manifesting mercy to poor, miserable, penitent
sinners. Who ever would have thought of mercy unless it had first been in the bosom
of God? Who could have ventured to entertain or suggest such a thought that "there
is forgiveness with God;" that he can "pardon iniquity, and transgression, and sin;"
that he can cast all our sins behind his back, and blot them out as a cloud, yes, as a
thick cloud? This is what God has revealed of himself in his word, but it is only as
mercy visits the troubled breast, and God displays his goodness and love in the
revelation of his dear Son, that we can rise up into any sweet apprehension of what
his mercy really is, and rejoice in it not only as suitable, but as saving."
13. This is a good place to study the mercy of God.
GOD IS MERCIFUL Based on Ps. 51:1

Dr. A. J. Cronin was raised in the strict tradition that if one did wrong they
were to be punished. Justice demanded it. In 1921 he took the post of medical
officer in an isolated district in Northumberland, England. He was young and
inexperienced, but though trembling, he one night performed a tracheotomy on the
throat of a small boy choking with diphtheria. He inserted the tube and gave a sigh
of relief as the boy’s lungs filled with air. He then went to bed leaving the sick boy
in the care of a nurse.
Some time in the night the tube filled with mucus and the boy began to choke.
Instead of cleaning the tube, as any good nurse should have done, the boy girl fled in
panic to get the doctor. When Dr. Cronin arrived the patient was dead. His anger
blazed at such blundering negligence, and he decided right there he would ruin her
career. He wrote a bitter letter to the County Health Board and read it to her with
burning indignation. The 19 year old Welsh girl listened in silence half fainting with
shame and misery. But finally she stammered, “Give me another chance.” He
shook his head and sealed the envelope as she slipped away.
That night he could not sleep. Give me another chance kept echoing through
his mind. Deep inside he knew he wanted to send that letter for revenge, and not
because of his love for justice. When morning came the light of mercy came as well,
and he tore up the letter. Twenty years later he wrote, “Today the nurse who erred
so fatally is matron of the largest children’s home in Wales. Her career has been a
model of service and devotion.”
Mercy, even on the human level, has saved many lives from being tragically
wasted because of some sin, error, failure, or folly. None are so godlike as those who
can exercise the virtue of mercy. In Shakespeare’s Merchant Of Venice old Shylock
wants revenge through justice, but Portia disguised as a young lawyer pays her
tribute to mercy and says, “It is an attribute of God Himself; and earthly power
doth then show likest God’s when mercy seasons justice.” And then she says again,
“Consider this-that in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation; we do
pray for mercy; and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of
mercy.”
Shakespeare not only understood the teaching of Christ that the merciful are
blest, but he understood the truth that David learned as well; that mercy is the only
hope for the guilty. There is no salvation for anyone in justice. Justice leaves us all
condemned, but mercy opens the door of hope and gives us another chance. That is
why David begins this great Psalm with a cry for God’s mercy. There is nowhere
else to begin. God’s mercy is the only hope for the salvation of the sinner and the
sanctification of the saint. If you take a concordance and look at all the references
to the mercy of God, you will soon understand why Andrew Murray called it the
greatest wonder of God’s nature. He wrote, “The omniscience of God is a wonder.
The omnipotence of God is a wonder. God’s spotless holiness is a wonder. None of

these things can we understand. But the greatest wonder of it all is the mercy of
God. Mrs. Helen E. Hammond wrote,
The great celestial bodies are
Most marvelous and grand,
And how they keep their courses
Men cannot understand.
But something far more wonderful
Than stars that brightly glow
Is the mercy of the living God
To creatures here below.
The basic meaning of the words for mercy in the Bible are kindness, loving
kindness, and graciousness. The Psalms deal so much with the mercy and loving
kindness of God that the Jews have always made this theme a major aspect of their
songs and prayers. In the 12th century the Jews in Spain sang a hymn on the Day of
Atonement, and it sounds very much like the opening verse of this Psalm.
Lord, blot out our evil pride,
All our sins before thee;
Our Father, for Thy Mercy’s sake
Pardon, we implore Thee.
The Jews have always recognized that their hope is in God’s mercy, and over
and over again they sang that the mercy of the Lord endures forever. Psa. 25:10
says, “All the paths of the Lord are mercy.” His mercy is not only everlasting, but it

is also universal. Psa. 145:8-9 says, “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to
anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and His compassion
is over all that he has made.” Both the Psalmist and the prophets explain God’s
mercy by saying He is slow to anger. This is a very important thing to grasp to
understand how God can be so merciful and still be a God of justice. The Bible
makes it clear that in spite of God’s all-encompassing mercy He is also a God of
judgment. How can the two be combined? It is all a matter of speed. His mercy
moves swiftly and gives the sinner every chance to repent and be forgiven before His
slow moving wrath ever reaches the sinner.
Spurgeon, in a sermon on Nah. 1:3, which says the Lord is slow to anger,
explained it with these eloquent words: “When mercy cometh into the world, she
driveth winged steeds; the axles of her chariot wheels are glowing hot with speed,
but when wrath cometh, it walketh with tardy footsteps; it is not in haste to slay, it is
not swift to condemn. God’s rod of mercy is ever in His hands outstretched; God
sword of justice is in its scabbard, not rusted in it-it can be easily withdrawn-but
held there by that hand that presses it back into its sheath crying,” sleep, O sword,
sleep, for I will have mercy upon sinners, and will forgive their transgressions.”
God is not quick to destroy rebels, for he knows that many can be brought back
to loyalty and allegiance. If He was speedy in His judgment, none would be saved.
It is the combination of His swift mercy and slow justice that makes salvation
possible. Because of this combination God’s judgment is never unfair. Mercy is
always given first chance, but if mercy is rejected, then no one can complain when
justice catches up and does its work.
All through history we see God gives a warning before His wrath falls. People
were warned through Noah long before the flood came. Israel was warned in
advance by the prophets before she faced judgment and captivity. Nineveh was
warned by Jonah before God’s anger struck, and because they responded with
repentance and cried out for mercy they were spared. When the warning is not
heeded, however, and when the offer of mercy is not received, God, with all His
loving kindness, cannot spare the sinner. Jesus said of the evil working Jezebel, who
was destroying the church at Thyatira in Rev. 2:21, “I gave her time to repent, but
she refused to repent of her immorality.” There was no alternative but judgment.
We see that the Lord even spares the worse just as long as He can. He reverses the
pattern of nature and sends the thunder of warning long before the lightening of
judgment. Heaven is God’s will, and He is not willing that any should perish, but
when mercy is refused then judgment is inevitable. Hell is the destiny men choose
for themselves because they reject the mercy of God.
Mercy and justice are perfectly combined in God so that one or the other deals
with all evil. Mercy is the alpha and justice is the omega. In our impatience we
often wish God’s judgment was not so slow. Like Jonah we want God to destroy the

wicked pagans before He gives them a warning and an offer of mercy. Mercy
sometimes seems almost like a crime when it is offered to one that you think is
deserving of wrath. David felt this way when the prophet Nathan told him of the
rich man who took the poor man’s only lamb and killed it for his meal. David was
not like God, but just the opposite. His sense of justice was swift, and he was ready
to reek immediate vengeance on the wicked man. He only reverse his rush toward
revenge when Nathan said, “Thou art the man.” David then realized that he was
the scoundrel whose sin had made him so mad.
When he saw that he was the one under condemnation, then mercy became far
more precious than justice. We tend to want justice for the other guy, but mercy for
ourselves when we are the ones who are guilty. The truly godly man will learn to
love mercy for everyone. God required that the godly man combined mercy with
justice just as God combines it in His nature. Mic. 6:8 says, “He has showed you, O
man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to
love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” The degree to which we succeed
in showing mercy and loving kindness determines much as to the mercy we receive
from God. Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.”
Someone wrote,
Teach me to feel another’s woe,
To hide the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show
That mercy show to me.
It is tragic but true what George Eliot wrote, “We hand folks over to God’s
mercy and show none ourselves.” True godlike mercy is both a feeling and a matter
of action. As an emotion mercy is the desire to pardon one who deserves
punishment. It is that feeling parents get when their children do something so
wrong that it deserves severe punishment, and yet there is a desire to pardon
because they love their children. As an act of the will mercy is doing good for and
forgiving one who deserves punishment. How many mothers have had children
make a mess of something that called for a spanking, but who not only didn’t spank
them, but in order to let them get in one something they have planned, even cleaned
up the mess? That is mercy in action.
God does not sit in heaven with feelings of mercy, but He enters into history to
act in mercy to get men to respond. Charles Finney in his Systematic Theology says

of mercy, “It will employ the intelligence in devising means to serve the repentance
of the sinner, and to remove all the obstacles out of the way¼” This is what made
God give His Son, and His Son give His life while we were yet sinners. Mercy does
not wait. It is ever busy seeking to save the lost. Finney says, “It is also this attitude
that energized in prophets, and Apostles, and martyrs, and saints of every age, to
secure the conversion of the lost in sin.”
As important as mercy is in God’s plan, and in the Christian life, it is a
problem for most Christians. Life refuses to stay simple, and instead becomes
complex, and this is so with the virtue of mercy. How do you prevent people from
taking advantage of your mercy? People try and do this with the mercy of God, but
we know they cannot fool Him. If men call upon God to forgive their sin, and then
go and willfully engage in it again, they do not deceive God. The man who said, “I
love to sin and God loves to forgive sin, and so we have an excellent relationship,”
has no understanding of the mercy of God. As this Psalm makes clear, if there is no
broken and contrite heart, then mercy is rejected. The proud sinner is not forgiven.
When we look at men’s attempt to imitate God in kindness and mercy,
however, we see that it seems to give evil an advantage over the good. For example,
a young boy was pushing a cart of goods up a steep hill and a stranger came along
and helped him. When they got to the top the man got his breath and said
indignantly, “Only a scoundrel would expect a youngster to do a job like that. Your
employer must have known it was to heavy for you.” The boy said, “He did, but he
said go ahead, your sure to find some old fool who will help you up the hill.”
Do-gooders and those who show kindness and mercy are often considered to be
fools, for they let people take advantage of them. Evil men who do not respond to
mercy only take advantage of it to continue their sin. Pardon the offender and they
use their freedom to commit more offenses. There is also the sentiment expressed,
“He that is merciful unto the bad is cruel to the good.” Total and absolute mercy
seems to give evil a break, and so the Christian needs to learn to balance mercy and
justice just as God does. Jesus said in Luke 6:36, “Be merciful, even as your Father
is merciful.” Only as we understand the mercy of God can we obey the command to
be merciful as He is, and then reap the rewards for doing so.
God hates sin more than any person, and His anger is to be feared. God’s
attitude is that sin and evil must be overcome and conquered. By sheer power He
could destroy them, but this would be inconsistent with His love and mercy. God’s
primary goal is not to see that men are punished, but to see that they are saved. A
bandit in Mexico was asked if he had any enemies, and he said that he had none
because he had shot them all. God could have taken this approach also, but that is a
mere victory of power, and not a victory for love.

God will punish the sinner, but before He does He seeks all possible ways to
win the sinner, or the lost sheep, back to the fold. Jesus came to seek and to save
that which was lost. This has ever been God’s program of mercy. One of the first
questions of the Bible is God asking of Adam, “Where art thou?” From that point
on the Bible is the story of a search. It is the search of God for all possible means to
confront men with His mercy. God knows we are but dust. He knows the folly and
sin of man, and the advantage they will try to take of His love, but yet it is true what
the poet writes,
There is no place where earth’s sorrows
Are more felt than up in heaven.
There is no place where earth failings
Have more kindly judgment given.
God so loves His people, and all people, that even when He is forced to send
judgment on them His primary thought is on how to restore them. When He falls
out with man it is something like the attitude expressed in a cartoon. Two junior
high girls were walking home from school when they saw Gregory on the other side
of the street. One nudged the other and said excitedly, “There’s Gregory!” The
other girl responded, “Oh, we’re not speaking anymore. I’ve lost all interest in him.
We haven’t spoken for three days, six hours, and 23 minutes.” She may have been
angry, but she counted the minutes until they were reconciled. So it is with God and
man. In Isa. 54:7-8 God said to His people who had suffered His judgment-
“For a brief moment I forsook you,
But with great compassion I will gather you.
In overflowing wrath for a moment I hide my face from you,
But with everlasting love I will have compassion on you.”
God does not treat sin lightly, and so no one can make a fool of Him. He will
judge and condemn, but He is ever seeking a way to reconcile a sinner and grant
them a merciful part. The wicked man is welcome on his dying day to say yes to
God’s mercy. A man fell from his horse and broke his neck. He cried out for God

to forgive him before he died. These words were put on his tombstone: “Between
the stirrup and the ground I mercy asked, I mercy found.” If we are going to be
Godlike in mercy, then we must recognize that is does not mean we never judge or
condemn sin, but it means that even when that is necessary we do not write off the
offender, but do all we can to be reconciled.
There is always hope for the worst of men to respond to love. All of us are
combinations of love and hate. We are like the girl who got mad and ran away from
home. She left this note: “Dear mom, I hate you. I’m going away. Love, Linda.”
The reason our conscience bothers us when we do wrong is because we really do
love what is right. You hate it for bothering you, but it bothers you because you love
it. The conscience is one of God’s agents of mercy. He made it to bother us when we
do wrong so that we feel sad and in need of mercy, which He stands ready to give.
It was God’s mercy that brought David to the point where he cried out for
mercy. The sinner cannot be forgiven until he prays, “God be merciful to me a
sinner.” When he does so he does not gain any merit, for it is God’s mercy that
makes him so pray. Some poet put it,
“I sought the Lord, and afterwards I knew
He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking me;
‘Twas not so much that I on Thee took hold,
As Thou, dear Lord, on me.”
The hope of the world is not in justice, but it is in the mercy of God and the
mercy of man for his fellow man. Memorial Day got its start in mercy, on an April
morning in 1863 a group of women came to the cemetery in Columbus, Mississippi
to dedicate the graves of their dead soldiers. The Civil War was still raging. One of
the women placed flowers on the graves of her two sons, and then walked over to
two mounds at the corner of the cemetery. One of the women asked what she was
doing because those were graves of union soldiers. “I know,” she said. “I also know
that somewhere up in the North, a mother or a young wife mourns for them as we
do for ours.” She faced the other women and continued, “They are dead, our heroes
of the South, and they are dead, these unknown soldiers of the North. All of them
are lying here in our churchyard. When the war is over and peace comes, we shall
call all of them heroes. We want someone to do this for our loved ones in nameless
graves. We must do it for these in our cemetery.” She put flowers on the graves of
these so-called enemies.

The story made its way to the New York Tribune, and then across the country.
It was the beginning of the effort to replace hatred with love. In 1868 General
Logan issued an order designating the 30th of May as a day to decorate the grave of
all who had fallen in war. This Declaration Day became our present Memorial Day.
It all began with the loving behavior of a mother and an act of mercy. We live in a
world of so much evil and conflict. As Christians we need to be the salt of the earth
and keep negative emotions from dominating the way people respond to all this evil
and conflict. This can only be accomplished as we experience an express mercy.
14. GOD IS MERCIFUL based on Acts 17:16-34
In 1867 a bearded Norwegian named Lars Skrefsrud, and a Danish colleague
found two and a half million people called the Santals living in a region north of
Calcutta, India. He quickly learned their language and began to proclaim the
Gospel. To his utter amazement the Santals were expecting just such a message, and
they were excited and enthused about it. One of the leaders said, "This means
Thakur Jiw has not forgotten us after all this time. Thakur means genuine and Jiw
means god. The Genuine God has not forgotten us.
Lars was dumbfounded, for he expected to tell these pagans about a God they
never heard of, and instead, he finds they have heard of the one supreme God. He
asked them how they knew, and one of the elders told him of their oral tradition.
"Long, long ago thakur Jiw, the Genuine God created the first man and woman.
They were tempted and fall, and knew that they were naked and were ashamed.
They had 7 sons and 7 daughters, and founded 7 clans. But the people became
corrupted and so God hid a holy pair in a cave and destroyed the rest of mankind
with a flood. The pair that was saved multiplied and God divided them into many
different peoples.
"The Santal people once obeyed Thakur Jiw, but as they made their way through
the Khyber Pass they became discouraged with the hardships of the mountains, and
they began to pray to the spirits of the mountains, and then to the spirit of the sun.
They just drifted away from Thakur Jiw. They still recognized him as the one
supreme God, but they developed their religion around lesser gods."
The missionary could not believe his ears. Here was a people who had the same
experience as the Jews. They had the truth of the supreme God in their tradition,
but went after other gods, and their religion became corrupted. When the Gospel
was proclaimed they recognized it was their supreme God showing mercy on them,
even though they had forsaken Him. If this was only an isolated case we could put it
into the category of the freak accidents and coincidences of history, but it is not

isolated. Don Richardson, author of Peace Child, in his book Eternity In Their
Hearts reveals how the belief in one true God is a part of the tradition in hundreds
of cultures throughout the world.
This one true God has many names, but he is always the Creator and Sustainer
of all, and supreme over all. The missionaries who confront these people have to
make a decision as to whether the name of their God is the name of the God of the
Bible, or not. In many cases they have concluded that it is, and the result is God has
a great many names.
It all started with Abraham and Melchizedek in Gen. 14. Abraham had just come
back from a victory over some kings and Melchizedek, the king of Salem, brought
out bread and wine and blest him. He was the priest of the Most High God, and he
said to Abraham, "Blessed be Abraham by God Most High, Creator of heaven and
earth." This God was El Elyon. This was a Canaanite name, and Abraham was
being blest in his name. Abraham did not say, "Hold on there, my God is Jehovah,
and not El Elyon." He not only did not say that, but he gave this high priest of El
Elyon a tenth of all he had. Heb. 7 makes much of this and shows Jesus Christ to be
a priest forever after the order of melchizedek. El Elyon became associated with the
God of the Bible and God was named in the Bible as Elohim, and El Shaddai.
This same thing happened in the New Testament world. Zeus was the king of the
gods, but he was so corrupt that he could not represent the one supreme God. But
the Greek writers, like Plato and Aristotle, used another name for the supreme God
which was not contaminated. They used Theos, and this became the name the
translators of the Old Testament into Greek used for God, and this is the name Paul
used in his New Testament letters for God. The pagan peoples of the Gentile world
had names for the supreme God that were kept pure enough to become the names of
the God of the Bible.
So getting back to Lars and the Santal people-he decided if Abraham and Paul
could do it, so could he, and so he accepted Thakur Jiw as the name of Jehovah. He
said it felt strange at first to be proclaiming Jesus Christ as the son of Thakur Jiw,
but after a couple of weeks he felt comfortable. The response was overwhelming as
thousands of Santals wanted to learn how they could be reconciled to Thakur Jiw
through Jesus Christ. They were averaging 80 baptisms a day. Lars baptized 15,000
during his years in India, and 85,000 were baptized by others.
There are many amazing missionary stories like this, but now we want to look at
the amazing experience of Paul as the missionary on Mars Hill in Athens, Greece.
Nowhere do we see Paul more eloquent as he faces the greatest intellectual audience
of his career. He stood on the very spot where men like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
stood, and he had to persuade the best minds of Greece. Gordon Lewis said, "Here

is one of the most dramatic moments of history as Jew meets Gentile, Jerusalem
confronts Athens, Christianity faces philosophy, faith meets reason." Athens was
the capital of the intellectual world, as Rome was the political capital, and
Jerusalem the religious capital. By his approach here Paul teaches us how the
Christian is to approach this world in fulfilling the Great Commission. You begin
by-
FINDING COMMON GROUND.
This calls for being observant, and doing some research. On the surface it would
seem that Athenian polytheism and Christian monotheism would have nothing in
common. Athens had so many gods that it became a proverb, "As well haul rocks to
a quarry as bring another god to Athens." It was the god capital of the world, and
you would need the yellow pages to keep track of them all. The streets could be
deserted of men, but their was always a god around on every street.
It is the same story over and over again all through history. Once a people stray
from the one true God in favor of lesser deities, they soon discover there is an
inflation factor in idolatry. They need more and more gods to fill the shoes of one
supreme God. You have to come with a god for every detail of life and nature, and
this becomes an endless process. The result is that even the most intelligent people
become utterly ridiculous in their multiplying of idols. The Greeks were scholars
and philosophers of the world, but in their wisdom they became fools. Athens had
an estimated 30,000 gods, which was more than all the rest of Greece put together.
Paul could have stood up and said, "You stupid superstitious screwballs." He
could have lashed out at their folly, but he did not take that approach. He took the
wiser approach and began his message by saying, "Men of Athens! I see that in
every way you are very religious." He was saying this, not with a sarcastic voice, but
with a note of appreciation. He was saying we are one in this, for I too am very
religious, and I have a religious message to share with you. He then selects a specific
object of their worship as a jumping off point to share the good news. Paul had
walked around the city, and he had observed the idols and altars everywhere. He
found one to an unknown God.
Paul was looking for some common ground from which to begin, and he found it
in this altar. Don Richardson says there is some common ground in every religion
and culture, for God in his mercy has given every people an insight into the truth
that enables them to understand the Gospel when it comes. It is the missionaries
task to find that common ground, just as Paul did here.

The unknown God was perfect, for his goal was to share with them the revelation
of God in Jesus Christ. They did not know this, and so the God of the Bible was an
unknown God to them. Paul says this God whom you worship as unknown I am
proclaiming to you so you can know him. The unknown God whom Paul made
known was not just another god, but he was the supreme God. He is not one of the
gods of gold, silver, and stones, or a god who lives in temples made with hands. He is
the God whom all peoples instinctively know as the God of all. He is the God who
created all, and the God of all nations. He is the God in whom we live, move, and
have our being. Paul quotes one of their own poets who said of this God that we are
his offspring.
Paul is saying by his approach to the Athenians that there is common ground for
all people who believe in God. In all the religions of the world where there is a belief
in God, there are universal truths held in common by all. No matter how corrupt
and perverted a religion becomes there is always the concept of a supreme God who
is the Creator of all, and the Lord of all men.
Paul is saying that this is, in fact, the God of the Bible. He may be called many
names, or even the unknown God, but logic demands that since there is only one
God, all concepts and names of the supreme God in other religions are the names
and concepts of the God of the Bible. All the religions of the world then have a
concept or name for the one true God who is the God we proclaim as Christians.
This becomes the common ground on which Christians stand with all the peoples of
the world. It is the key to reaching them. Mission minded people are ever seeking to
find that in the culture of other people which becomes a link to the God of the Bible.
God has never left himself without a witness. Man has natural revelation that gives
them a concept of an almighty and all wise God over all creation.
Even the religious writings of the world convey much of the truth that God wants
all men to have, and which opens them up to receive the greater truth in Christ.
Paul quotes the poet Cleanthes in verse 28. Paul read this pagan poet and said to
himself, "This is good. Here is a pagan who says some things I can use, for he sees
what in universally true." Let me share a part of the hymn to Zeus that Paul is
quoting from.
"O God, most glorious, called by many a name,
Nature's great King, through endless years the same;
Omnipotence, who by thy just decree

Controllest all, hail, Zeus, for unto thee
Behooves thy creatures in all lands to call.
We are thy children, we alone, of all
On earth's road ways that wander to and fro,
Bearing thine image wheresoe'er we go,...
He goes on to speak of God as King of Kings and universal Word, and the one
who makes the crooked straight, and chaos into order. The point is, even a pagan
poet can know much about God, and it is a Christian obligation to find out where
people are, and from that common ground open up the new light God has given in
Jesus Christ.
The reason the Christian is to go into all the world and preach the Gospel is not
because the pagan world has no light. There is much light in the world. There is so
much good religion and morality in the world, and so much that is true and wise,
but none of it will save without a Savior. God is not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance, and this can only happen as people hear the
good news of what the supreme God has done for them in Jesus Christ.
It is the mercy of God that motivates missionaries. People know much of God all
over this world, but they do not know that God provided a sacrifice for all sin, and
that He conquered death in His Son, and that they can have assurance of eternal life
by faith in Him. The full and final revelation of God is in Jesus Christ. Other
revelations are marvelous and true, but they are not complete. Judaism is one of the
most marvelous religions of the world. They have more truth about God by written
revelation than any other religion of the world. They actually have more than
Christians, for the Old Testament is much larger than the New Testament.
Quantity, however cannot take the place of quality. The final and complete
revelation of God is found only in Jesus Christ. The mercy of God compels us to
have missions to the Jews, for in spite of all their truth, they do not have the final
revelation of their God.
It is the same with all other peoples. They have much that is true, but they do not
have the Truth. Christians are to go, not in pride as if we are better than others, for
we are not. What we have we have received, and it is our obligation to pass it on.
Dr. Richardson was a missionary for 13 years to the people in New Guinea. He
makes it clear that the more you study the religions of the world, the more you

realize that God has not left Himself without a witness. All people have general
revelation, and many have traditions which link them to the biblical past when all
men worshipped the true God. It is amazing how much biblical truth there is in the
folk religions of the world. The Christian does not go into all the world because
other religions have no value and truth. He goes because they need to hear of the
ultimate and final Truth of God's revelation in Christ.
The second thing you come to realize is that all religions are under law. Paul
writes in Rom. 2:14, "Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature
things required by the law, they are a law for themselves....they show the
requirements of the law are written on their hearts." This means that every
religious person on this planet is basically in the same place as the Jews were. They
had the law as a foundation, but their religion was not complete until they had a
Savior who satisfied the demands of the law, and saved them by His grace. This is
what all of the religious people of the world need, and mercy is to motivate us to
meet that need by getting the Gospel to them.
Mercy is the ready inclination to relieve misery. The world is in misery trying to
save themselves by religion, by works, and by obedience to law. No one has ever
been saved by that route yet, not even when it was the revealed religion and law of
the Old Testament. The Christian mission is a mission of mercy. It is taking the
good news to all the world that God has not forgotten or forsaken them, even though
they deserve it, but He has made it possible for them to be saved, and released from
the bondage to their religion of law.
Mercy is not only the motive for missions, but it is the motive for witnessing in
our own land. We tend to think that because the American people know so much
about Christianity and the truth of the Bible that they do not need witnessing. But
we need to see that all around us the religious people in our land are just like those
in the rest of the world. They have all kinds of wonderful truth, morality, and
insights into life, but it is still a religion of law. They expect to be saved by their
good works and obedience to the law. They do not know the freedom of being saved
by trusting in the finish work of Christ. Jesus is not only the completion of
Judaism; Jesus is not only the completion of the religions of the world; Jesus is not
only the completion of the unknown God, Jesus is the completion of Christianity as
well.
There are millions of religious Christians who have an amazing knowledge of the
true God, but who have never gotten in on His mercy and been saved by personal
trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior. Mercy must compel us to share this with
people so that they can have God's best and be complete in Christ.

What is mercy? I see it as God's friendship in action. In mercy God gets
involved in our lives and in our world. He blesses where we do not deserve it. He
rescues us from our own folly, and forgives us when we are worthy of
condemnation. Mercy is what we see the father of the Prodigal practicing. He
didn't deserve a place in the barn, or a dish of leftovers, but the father restored him
to full dignity as a son, and made him the honored guest at a banquet of celebration.
It was all mercy, and the father even pleaded with the elder son to come in and
join the party. This too was mercy, for he deserved to be shut out for his bitter
attitude. The father is the friend of both of his boys, for his dominant attitude
toward both was mercy. His best was available to both because of his mercy. This
is the message the whole world needs to hear, for the one prayer that is always
heard and answered is, "God be merciful to me a sinner." The best proof of this is
the dying thief upon the cross who mercy sought and mercy found. He was the first
in paradise, even though he was hell-bound. The poet wrote,
When Christ, my Lord, hung dying,
Dying on the shameful tree,
Men in all their madness mocked Him,
Yet no word at all said He.
But when at His side a sinner,
Hanging there in shame to die,
Pleading, sought his loving favor,
Swiftly came love's glad reply.
When thou comest to thy kingdom,
Lord, he cried, remember me.

Yeah, to-day, with me in glory,
Jesus answered, thou shalt be.
Was not this most wondrous pity,
So to bless a dying thief
Even amid his own deep anguish
Thus to give a soul relief?
Tell it in the highest heaven,
Tell it in the depths below;
Tell it to the lost and outcast;
Tell it in the haunts of woe:
To the ver chief of sinners
Let the blessed tidings go.
He who asks the Savior's mercy
Shall the Savior's mercy know.
Author unknown
Not only are we saved by mercy, but we are sanctified, guided, delivered, and
protected by mercy. It would take over an hour just to read all of the text in the

Bible dealing with God's mercy toward us. Let me just share a few. Daniel asks his
friends to plead for God's mercy in revealing the king's dream so that they are not
executed. Whenever God gets involved in our lives to rescue and protect us, it is His
mercy in action.
In Neh. 9 the history of Israel's departure from God, and God's compassion and
deliverance is rehearsed. It happened times without number, yet he says in verse 31,
"But in your great mercy you did not put an end to them or abandon them, for you
are a gracious and merciful God." If God was not merciful there would be only one
book of the Old Testament. It is long because God's mercy endures forever.
It is one of the most frequent prayers of the Psalms. "Remember, O Lord your
great mercy and love. Do not withhold your mercy from me O Lord. In our great
mercy turn to me." Over and over, and over again in trials and troubles of all kinds
the cry for mercy goes up. It is a prominent aspect of prayer in this world where so
much can go wrong. The fact that anything goes right, and that you escape many of
the evils of life is due to God's grace and mercy. The greatest need of every human
being is for God's mercy. There is no salvation without it, and there is no victory or
happiness without it. Here is a major need of every person. Jesus said that to get it
we must give it. He said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." It
is by being channels of mercy to others that we receive the flow of mercy into our
own lives.
The Christian life is to be a life of mercy. We are to have compassion on people
who are lost, and in mercy share the light that leads out of darkness into life. We
are to have compassion concerning every human need. We are to put friendship
into action, and let mercy abound in loving service. Mercy is the motive for
missions, and every compassionate concern for a needy world. The incarnation was
a mission of mercy. The life of Jesus was a ministry of mercy. His death and
resurrection was the master plan for universal mercy. The great commission is
every Christians command to take the mercy of God to all people. Mercy is to be
our motivation to help everybody we can to find God's best in Christ. Everything
we experience, and everything we share is because God is merciful.
Yea, “new every morning,” though we may awake,
Our hearts with old sorrow beginning to ache;
With old work unfinished when night stayed our hand
With new duties waiting, unknown and unplanned;
With old care still pressing, to fret and to vex,
With new problems rising, our minds to perplex

In ways long familiar, in paths yet untrod,
His faithfulness fails not; it meets each new day
New guidance for every new step of the way;
New grace for new trials, new trust for old fears,
New patience for bearing the wrongs of the years,
New strength for new burdens, new courage for old,
New faith for whatever the day may unfold;
As fresh for each need as the dew on the sod;
- Annie Johnson Flint
15. THE RICHES OF HIS GRACE
Dr. Curtis Hutson, “Forgiveness is not according to the character of the offender,
but according to the character of the offended one. There are many who believe
that forgiveness if based upon character, that one must live a moral life to obtain
forgiveness. That simply is not true. Forgiveness is based upon the character of the
one who is offended. Only the offended one can forgive. It is “according to the
riches of His grace” that you have forgiveness, not according to your character.
God has forgiven some awfully bad characters. One example is the Apostle Paul.
Before his conversion, he persecuted the church and was responsible for the death of
many Christians.”
“The Bible doesn’t say,” God, who is rich in real estate....beef steak....
gold....silver....precious stones”; it says, “God, who is rich in mercy.” He has a
wealth of mercy!”
“I use to work for a loan company. If a bill wern’t paid on the due date, there was a
so-called 5 day “grace” period. But it certainly wasn’t grace, because they added a
late charge for every day the payment was late.”
“Do you why Methuselah lived so long? You say, “He ate well.” Maybe so, but that
is not why he lived long. The name “Methuselah” means “When he is dead it shall
be sent.” The year Methuselah died the flood came. God was not anxious to poor
out wrath on Noah’s world. He wasn’t anxious to flood the world and destroy all
mankind! God wanted to wait and wait and wait; and so He said, “When he is dead,
it shall be sent.” God stretched out Methuselah’s years to 969; and he lived to be the

oldest man in the world-not because he was in good health, but because there is a
long suffering God who is extraordinarily patient and whose grace far exceed s most
ideas about it.” “The Bible says in Rom. 5:20, “Where sin abounded grace did
much more abound.” “Abound” means more than enough. Where there was more
than enough sin there was more than more than enough grace.” Grace is God’s
riches at Christ’s expense.
16. Thomas Bardbury wrote, "I will sing of mercy and judgment," said the
Psalmist, "unto Thee, O Lord, will I sing." (Ps. 101:1) And if some of us live until
tomorrow we shall read, no doubt, that blessed new covenant psalm, the 89th,
beginning with mercy, flowing with mercy, concluding with mercy, with mercy
which never ends. See how mercy is extolled in that 136th Psalm. There at the end of
every verse twenty-six times we find ourselves refreshed with mercy, delivered with
mercy, preserved, with mercy, guided by mercy, remembered in mercy, redeemed
with mercy, fed with mercy, overcome with mercy. "His mercy endureth for ever." I
love to sing
"A debtor to mercy alone,
Of covenant mercy I sing,
Nor fear with Thy righteousness on,
My person and offerings to bring;
The terrors of law and of God
With me can have nothing to do;
My Saviour's obedience and blood
Hide all my transgressions from view."
For many long years Stocker's words have frequently warmed my heart
"Thy mercy is more than a match for my heart,
Which wonders to feel its own hardness depart;
Dissolved by Thy goodness I fall to the ground,
And weep to the praise of the mercy I found."
17. The mercy of God is seen so often in our lives by the answers to our prayers.
That was the great mercy that David was seeking in his prayer. He desperately
needed God to come to his rescue and save him, for in his own power he could not
overcome all of the enemies that sought his life. Every one of us experience the
mercy of God in our lives daily, for we are spared by his providence from all of the
enemies of life that kill people daily. We are alive today by the mercy of God. You

are reading this because God has spared you to do so. Thank God right now for
answered prayer, and for his mercy in ways that you never even asked for.
APPENDIX A UNANSWERED PRAYER
UNANSWERED PRAYER Based on Matt. 6:1-14
By Pastor Glenn Pease
The story is told of a Russian scientist who was found guilty of a crime
against the state. He was sentenced to a prison in the middle of a desert. His cell
mate was another scientist. He was determined to escape, and he urged his cell
mate to join him, but he refused. After much planning he did finally escape, but
the heat of the desert was unbearable, and the lack of food and water plus in the
inability to locate another human being almost drove him mad. He was forced
to return to the prison. He reported his terrible ordeal to his cell mate, and he
responded, “Yes, I know. I escaped and failed for the same reason.” The
scientist was beside himself with frustration and said, “Why in heaven’s name
didn’t you tell me what it was like out there?” His cell mate replied, “I didn’t
want to be a negative thinker.”
For lack of negative thinkers, that is people who will tell it like it is, even
when what is is not what we want it to be, there are masses of people who, if they
do not die in the desert of despair, survive with weakened faith, and scars on
their soul. The more I study, the more I realize how absolutely vital it is that we
listen to our Lord. He told it like it was, and like it is, and like it shall ever be.
Jesus tells us in all honesty that there is a desert out there. He warns us of the
dangers, and does not shy away from being a negative thinker.
“Be careful,” he warns as he opens this chapter. There are all kinds of ways
you can lose out and damage your relationship to God. The paradox is that all
of the areas of danger are good things. They are things like giving, prayer, and
fasting. You can do all these good things in such a wrong way that they drive
you from God rather than draw you near to Him. This is not a pleasant reality
for Jesus to lay on us, but thank God for one who tells us of the dangers, and
gives warning so we can avoid them.
Most godly men will not give us such warnings, for they are fearful of being
negative thinkers. Jesus makes it clear that it is the truth that sets us free, and
truth covers a lot of territory, and it includes the dark side as well as the light
side. Only the whole truth will make us free. S. D. Gordon was right when he
said, “It is always bad to have the truth hid from our eyes.” This means that if
there is a negative side to an issue, it is bad not to think about it and be a
negative thinker. I want to focus on the negative truth Jesus tells us about
prayer. There are many books on prayer that will not tell you what Jesus tells

you, because they do not want to be negative thinkers. They hope by avoiding
the negative they will protect you from that side of reality. But what they do is
force you to learn about the negative the hard way, and risk permanent damage
to your faith.
Jesus will not do this, and that is why we must listen to Him, and test all
others by the light of His Word. You will have to read far and wide on prayer to
find anyone who comes close to Jesus in telling the negative side of prayer. I see
three major reasons why prayer is not answered in the teaching of Jesus in
verses 5 through 14.
1. First is the matter of motivation. You can pray for the wrong reason, and
when you do your prayer never reaches heaven at all. It is a bird without
wings.
2. There is the matter of misconception. You think that quantity is what
impressed God, and so by vain repetition you hope to storm the gates of
heaven. Jesus says forget it, for prayer is not magic, and God is no machine.
3. There is the matter of missing mutuality. If you do not have the same spirit
as God does in forgiving others, do not expect Him to answer your prayer for
forgiveness. God’s love is like electricity; it will not flow in where it cannot
flow out. You can’t receive what you will not give. Jesus promises us that if
we refuse to forgive our prayer for forgiveness will not be answered.
So Jesus tells it like it is in the world of prayer, and in so doing He
complicates things, and forces us to wrestle with the conditions for answered
prayer. What happens when we do not want to wrestle with such things, and
take the short cut of teaching very positively that God answers all prayers?
Such positive teaching may induce faith in those who life is smooth sailing, but
injures faith in those whose voyage is a cross stormy seas. The only real question
is this: Is it true? Does God answer all prayers? Let’s look at how this teaching
has affected the lives of those who have believed it.
1. A young girl tore her new geography book just before school ended for the
day. She put it in her desk and went home feeling bad about it. She
remembered her teacher had taught her that God would do anything for her.
So she prayed that He would fix the book so that it was not torn anymore.
She prayed with persistence, and with faith. She eagerly went to school the
next day expecting the book to be as good as new. It was a great
disappointment to find the page was still torn. Her faith was thrown for a
loop, and she struggled with many questions. Was she a bad girl? Didn’t
God like her? Was she rejected by God? How many millions of children go
through terrible times of self-rejection because they are taught that God will
answer all their prayers?
2. Somerset Maugham in Of Human Bondage has the character Philip praying
that his club foot would be healed so he could play sports. With no doubts in

his mind he prays fervently, but in the morning he comes limping to the
breakfast table. Now he is not only defective of body, but damaged in spirit.
3. Mark Twain’s greatest objection to Christianity was the teaching of children
that God answers all their prayers. He writes of how Huckleberry Finn had
such a teacher, and of how he experimented with prayer. He once got a line
he said, but no hooks, and it warnt any good without hooks. He prayed 3 or
4 times for the hooks, but couldn’t make it work. Huck said he went into the
woods and had a long think about it. If prayer can get anything, why don’t
deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can’t the widow get
back her silver that was stole? Why can’t Miss Watson the teacher fat up?
He concluded, “No, says I to myself, there ain’t nothin to it.”
4. R. F. Horton gives this testimony: “I remember as a child putting God to the
test. I placed a bright farthing in a drawer, and then knelt down and prayed
for God to transmute it into a half-sovereign. With trembling eagerness I
opened the drawer, and found that the copper was copper still. That was my
dawn of skepticism in prayer.” If pennies could be prayed into dollars, all
Christians would be faithful in prayer, and even eager for all night prayer
meetings. This childish dream does not last long, of course, because one is
quickly disillusioned about prayer as magic. This fairy tale level of prayer,
however, is still often imposed on children and adults by those who do not
want to be negative thinkers.
5. A study of the Civil War reveals that the South had as many godly leaders as
the North, and the prayers for victory were as sincere and fervent as those in
the North. Many godly Christians had their faith shaken when the South lost
the war they had bathed in prayer. God refused to give victory, even to His
own, when they fought for a cause which was not His will.
6. Maude Royden tells of the British soldier who came home from World War
I, and his family rejoiced as they told him how they had prayed for him, and
knew that he would come home. He protested, “Don’t talk like that. I can’t
bear it.” He had seem dozens of his comrades killed who were equally
prayed for, and some he had watched die while he prayed with passion for
them.
Illustrations of unanswered prayer are endless, and you need look no further
than your own life, for any body who is into prayer at all has experienced
unanswered, as well as answered prayer. Unanswered prayer is most dangerous
when you don’t believe it exists, and you twist and turn reality to fit your notion
that all prayers are answered. Like Miss Marshall and her aunt Miss Marsh
who prayed for Captain Hedley Vicors to be spared as he fought in the Crimean
War. He was shot and killed, but they refused to believe their prayer was
unanswered. They rationalized and said that we prayed for life for him, and
God gave him life forever and ever.
This kind of mind trick may work for some, but the fact is, they prayed he
would not die, and not that he would live forever in heaven starting then. They
made the opposite of what they prayed for to be the answer to their prayer.

Those with this gift can, of course, always hold fast to their faith that all prayers
are answered. But if you define answer to mean getting what you asked for, the
fact is that many prayers are not answered. I do not like it anymore than you
do, but I prefer to face this reality rather than to pretend that whatever comes is
an answer. With this view there is no distinction between an answer and no
answer.
It is true, however, that sometimes a non answered prayer is the best answer.
This was written by an unknown Confederate soldier.
“I asked God for strength, that I might achieve: I was made weak that I might
obey. I asked for health that I might do greater things: I was given infirmity that I
might do better things. I asked for riches that I might be happy: I was given
poverty that I might be wise. I asked for power that I might have the praise of men:
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God. I asked for all things that I
might enjoy life: I was given life that I might enjoy all things. I received nothing
that I asked for, but all I had hoped for.” God gave him what was best for him, but
the fact is, his prayers were unanswered. He got God’s will for him and not what he
prayed for, and so God in His wisdom will not answer our prayers because they are
not the best for us. So our trust is to be in God and not in prayer.
A false view of prayer that makes it the object of one’s faith is a subtle form
of idolatry. It is surprising, but a false view of prayer is the door to atheism for
many. Faith Baldwin tells of the girl whose fiancée was killed as a pilot, and she
said, “I went to church everyday and prayed. I prayed every night and almost
every waking hour. But he was killed. I shall never pray again, nor enter a
church.” Prayer changes things alright, and sometimes for the worst when it is
exalted to the level of magic, or as the key to one’s faith. It becomes a subtle
form of blackmail where you, in effect, say to God, “You either answer my
prayer, or I cancel you off my list. I don’t want anything to do with a God who
does not do things my way.”
Job said, “Though he slay me yet will I trust Him.” Now that is faith in God.
Faith in prayer says, “God, if you let me down, I will forsake you.” It is the
ultimate in presumption, for in essence it is saying, “God, you do my will, or you
are fired.” Man just loves to be in control of God. There are only three
possibilities.
1. God answers all prayer.
2. God answers no prayer.
3. God answers some prayers, and does not answer some prayers.
The first two are the only two that people want to believe because that gives
them control. If God answers all prayer, then God is the servant of man, and all
we have to do is manipulate God through prayer. We have the secret formula,
and He is in our hands. The unbeliever and atheist goes for number two, for if

God answers no prayer, He is of no use, and so for all practical purposes does
not exist, and man is in control.
The third alternative people shy away from because if that one is true, we
don’t have any control over God. He is free to chose to answer or not, and we do
not like God having that kind of freedom. It takes Him out of our hands
altogether, and it leaves us at His mercy. Like it or not, that is the way it is. God
is free, and in His sovereign freedom He can, He does, and He will chose not to
answer prayers for any number of reasons. Here are some-
1. Because of hypocrisy to be seen of men. Jesus said false motives will lead to
unanswered prayer. Matt. 6:5
2. Because of double mindedness. James says, “Let not that man think he will
receive anything from the Lord.” James 1:7. James 4:3 makes it clear that
wrong motives will lead to unanswered prayer. He writes, “When you ask,
you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend
what you get on your pleasures.”
3. Because you refuse to be reconciled with a brother. Matt. 5:23-24
4. Because you refuse to forgive another. Matt. 6:14-15
5. Because of a thousand and one ways by which we refuse to listen to the Word
of God. We become stubborn in disobedience, and like a rebellious child who
does not get his way. Prov. 28:9 says, “If anyone turns a deaf ear to the law
even his prayers are detestable.” Prayer does not always change things, for if
the one praying does not change, the prayer changes nothing.
6. Some requests are just plain contrary to His will. Sometimes they are like
the man before the firing squad who was asked for his last request, and he
asked for a bullet proof vest. It was, of course, refused. And so it is with
many things we ask that have no place in God’s plan.
7. Prov. 21:13 says very clearly, “If a man shuts his ear to the cry of the poor,
he too will cry out and not be answered.” Prayer is conditional in so many
ways. It is not automatic at all. Many times God had to say to Israel that
their sins had separated them from Him, and He would not even hear their
prayers.
8. In I Sam. 8:18 God says to the people who have refused to let His Lordship
be sufficient, and who have demanded a king like the nations surrounding
them had, that he would grant them a king, but that that the king would
become a burden rather than a blessing. Then He adds, “When that day
comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the
Lord will not answer you in that day.” Here is a promise not to answer their
prayer, but a promise to not answer their prayer. I don’t think this has ever
been anybody’s favorite verse, but it is a fact, and God has promised
unanswered prayer to be a fact of life. It is not just possible, it is guaranteed.
We reap what we sow, and very often we cannot undo our choices by prayer.
God in mercy often brings good out of evil, but the fact is, He also often lets
us reap the evil of our choices. Even this may be good for us in the long run,
but it is not an answer to our prayers.

9. In I Peter 3:7 we read, “Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live
with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as
heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your
prayers.” Peter makes it clear that we can hinder our prayers by behavior
that is not pleasing to God. Many prayers are likely not answered because of
bad relationships and negative behavior between mates.
Jesus is not anti-prayer anymore than He is anti-giving or anti-fasting, or
anti-anything that is done for the glory of God and the good of man. But Jesus
deals honestly with the negative side of these things, for the only way you can
avoid pitfalls and disillusionment is to know the truth. The truth is that there is
more unanswered prayer in this world than we can imagine. The billions of
prayers said by rote, prayer wheels, or other methods of vain repetition, plus
numerous Christian prayers based on ignorance and a false foundation, go
unanswered every day. Fortunately, many of life’s blessings do not depend on
prayer at all. God sends His reign on the just and the unjust alike, and both
good and evil enjoy the energy of warmth and light from the sun. Even those
who never pray at all experience a multitude of God’s blessings.
We can be thankful that God does not let everything depend upon the prayers
of man. He permits prayer to influence His providential plan in nature, but it is
primary objective and independent of the subjective wills of men. Every
weekend of the spring and summer some bride and groom, and some sports
lovers, are praying for sun, and at the same time there are farmers who are
praying for rain. If God permitted prayer to control the weather, a majority on
one side or another would create havoc. I’ll leave that realm of reality in the
hands of God, but even in the areas of life where God invites the input of our
prayers, there are many reasons why they are not effective, and why they go
unanswered. Don’t feel bad if you have unanswered prayer. You join the great
company of the heroes of history. They were great persons of prayer, and they
changed the course of history by their faithful prayers, but they also experienced
the frustration of unanswered prayer.
Jesus, of course, is at the top of the list. The perfect Son of God, whose
prayers were always ideal, and yet He had to hear God’s no. “Let this cup pass
from me,” he prayed, but He had to drink it to the last drop. He was ready to
surrender, and He added, “Not my will but Thine be done,” but His will was not
to drink it, and He did not get His will for there was no other way. Jesus also
prayed for Jerusalem, but they rejected Him anyway, and His prayer was not
answered. He said, “I would, but you would not.” Jesus did not always get His
way, and that is why He wept and experienced sorrow to the depths. He knew
the frustration and the agony of unanswered prayer.
Paul knew plenty of this burden, and one personal problem stands out. Three
times he prayed for the removal of his thorn in the flesh, and all he got in return
was a no. Moses pleaded with God to let him enter the promised land, but God

refused to hear him, and he was not permitted to enter. David pleaded with God
to let his child live, but the child died. Sometimes God’s no makes perfectly good
sense. When Elijah pleaded with God to take his life, we can see why God
refused that request. If God took home to heaven everyone of His children who
cried out in depression for escape, the rapture would be a continuous process,
rather than an event at the end of history. If you give the issue some
concentrated study, much unanswered prayer makes good sense.
In the first place, life would be a nightmare of uncertainty if God let the
universe be controlled by the prayers of His people, rather than by natural law.
The legend of King Midas illustrates this. He prayed that all he touched would
turn to gold, and he was just delighted as he began to touch things and increase
his fortune. But then he touched his daughter, and he lost a treasure that gold
could not buy as she became a statue of gold. Thank God He does not grant
every whim and wish of His people. Once when He did it and granted Israelites
their wish for meat, they got with their miracle of the quail a plague that killed
them by the thousands. God granted their wish, but sent leanness to their souls.
Longfellow was right when he said, “What discord we should bring into the
universe if all our prayers were answered! Then we should govern the world
and not God. And do you think we should govern it better? It gives me pain to
hear the long, wearisome petitions of men asking for they know not what.”
Many a Christian can give testimony to the blessings of unanswered prayer.
One couple pleaded with God for a certain home. They didn’t get it. Later they
learned that the buyer was greatly disappointed because he found much dry rot
in it. We do not always know the good reasons why God does not answer our
prayers, but often we can find that good reason. Unanswered prayer is a
challenge to self-examination. Let’s look at a couple of known reasons why God
does not answer prayer and see how this reality should motivate us to self-examination.
1. We already looked at I Peter 3:7 where prayer may be hindered by a
husband not treating his wife properly. This is very logical, for God
certainly is not going to be a partner in making marriage the opposite of
what He intended it to be. He will not reward behavior that is contrary to
His will, and there is no way to calculate how many prayers go unanswered
because of such behavior. The implication would be that any abuse of
another person will hinder your prayers from being answered.
2. If God answered all prayers He would be far less discriminating and rational
than our earthly fathers. They do refuse our requests quite often because
they are selfish and uncaring. They refuse many of our requests because
they are caring of us. They know that much of what we desire is either
dangerous for us, or not appropriate at the time. They know some of the
things we request our just plain stupid, and it would be nothing short of evil
to grant the petition.

Is our heavenly Father less concerned about such matters? No way! He too
refuses to grant the enormous number of immature prayers His children
pester Him with daily. He would be irresponsible if He allowed the world to
be run by the whims of His children. We respect parents who do not let their
children turn their home and life into chaos, but who discipline them and say
no. So we ought to expect as much from our Father in heaven. This means
we need to examine our requests and ask ourselves if we are being selfish and
unreasonable to even expect such prayers to be answered.
Is there any value in all of this negative thinking about the reality of
unanswered prayer? Yes there is! It sets us free from those things that hurt us
worse than the truth that many of our prayers will not be answered. For
example:
1. It sets us free from the illusion that we have a formula for controlling God.
This is a dangerous illusion, and leads to much disillusionment. This view
that all prayer is answered leads many to give up prayer altogether. The
woman who played Olivia Walton, the mother on the Waltons T.V. show,
told of how she was taught by a priest that all prayer was answered. She got
so excited she began to pray for a bicycle. When she got shoes instead the
disappointment was so great she struggled the rest of her life with doubts.
She could have been spared all of that by being told that maybe, or maybe
not, her prayer would be answered for a bike. The simple truth would have
set her free and given her a realistic view of prayer.
It could have saved Bob Ringer, the author of Looking Out For No. 1, and
Winning Through Intimidation, a loss of faith in prayer. He wrote of his teen
experience. “I prayed for some things that were pretty important to me and
nothing happened. So I just gave up the whole idea. Sort of outgrew it, I
guess.” This is what false teaching on prayer leads to in many lives.
2. It sets us free from a false dependence on God. People who expect God to
take care of everything lack initiative to take the responsibility to work out
their own problems. You cannot just pray for weed to go away, you have to
get out there and pull and spray. God will not let you get by with praying
about things that you can do yourself. You chances of getting a toothache
taken care of by prayer is quite remote. You can go to the dentist and use the
means available to take care of it. Just as the bank will not cash all checks
until certain conditions are met, so God will not answer many prayers
because you have not met the conditions. If you use the means available to
solve a problem and it does not work, then it is appropriate to seek God’s
answer in prayer. But to expect God to hand you an answer when you do not
even try to use the means He has made available through the wisdom and
labors of men is presumptuous. The church was established to meet many of

the needs of the body, and we need to take advantage of that and not expect
God to do directly what He does through the body of Christ.
3.
4. It sets us free from the practice of Christian voodoo. We do not stick pins in
dolls to try to influence people, but we do try to do the same thing and get
control over others through prayer. We would like to manipulate the lives of
others by prayer, and we would if it would work. But God does not allow
prayer to be like magic. He will not allow us to force people to make the right
decisions through our prayers. They have to make the right choices
themselves. It is legitimate to pray that they will make the wise choices, and
to follow the prayer up with what influence we might have, but we cannot
expect that prayer alone will make people choose wisely. When you pray for
others to do what is best, be prepared for many unanswered prayers, for God
does not rob people of their free will in answer to anyone’s prayers.
We must constantly fight the battle for balance, and not be caught up with
the extremes that say all prayer is answered, or no prayer is answered. Both
extremes are false, and so we need to live in the middle where we know some
prayers are answered and others are not. The Bible portrays all the great prayer
warriors as suffering the agony of unanswered prayer, but never do they give up
on prayer because of their disappointment. The batter that gets 3 or 4 hits out of
10 is a hero. He misses more than he hits, but he does not give up and quit. So
men ought always to pray and not faint the Bible says, for those who are
persistent in prayer will have far more answers than those who give up and cease
to pray. Partial success always beats total failure in anybody’s book. Only those
who persist in prayer will taste the fruit of victory along with the agony of
defeat. The absence of answers ought never to keep us from the abundance of
answers that will surely come to those who do not faint and give up.
A realistic view of prayer makes us put our trust in God and not in prayer.
Those who preach that prayer is always answered almost idolize prayer. It is not
prayer that saves us, loves us, gives us guidance and wisdom, and seeks the best
for us in all ways. It is God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who is to be the place
where we put our faith and hope, and not prayer. Prayer is just the means by
which we communicate with God. The love and power are in God and not
prayer. When we grasp this we will not be ready to abandon God when He does
not answer all our prayers. We may never know all the reasons why, but we can
trust Him and keep on trusting Him no matter how many unanswered prayers
we have to endure. That is what faith in God is all about.
If we go to the great faith chapter of Heb. 11 we see many prayers that were
answered, but a whole host of them that were not. After a long list of great
victories we come to the last part of the chapter and get a list of prayers that
were not answered. Many of God’s children were tortured, beaten and put in
prison. They were stoned and butchered and put to death. They were terribly
persecuted and abused and lived a life that was very miserable. They prayed a

thousand prayers that were never answered, but they are commended because
they remained faithful to God, and they never gave up because they never
received the promise. They knew that God would make it up to them ultimately.
This is faith in God, and not faith in prayer, and that kind of faith is what
enables people to endure and press on even when prayer is not answered.

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