Does God Hear All Prayers?

Tom: Thanks, Gary. You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him.

We’re going through Dave Hunt’s book Seeking and Finding God: In Search of the True Faith, and, Dave, we’re mentioning this book because we’re already finishing up chapter 5 and we’re about to start chapter 6. So we’ve been talking about it for a number of weeks.

Dave: We’re halfway through it.

Tom: Yeah, and it’s a very short book. It’s 125 pages or so, it’s an easy read, but more than that it’s a very simple presentation of the gospel. It’s the kind of book that you want to have to give to somebody who’s interested. Obviously if you give a book to somebody who’s not interested they’re not going to read it, no matter how brief it is. But for somebody who has some questions, this deals with questions that if people haven’t asked, they should be asking and it presents it in a very simple way, Dave.

Dave: Well, Tom, I’ve already had some phone calls and the book really has scarcely gotten out there—very enthusiastic reactions in the book, and people wanting to order some to give to their friends. It’s the book that I have wanted to have for years to follow up people that I meet on my travels and I’m certainly using it.

Tom: We’re currently finishing up chapter 5. The title of chapter 5 is “Concerning Prayer” and, Dave, you begin the chapter by saying the major partner to faith is prayer. Yet as faith has been distorted, people have erroneous ideas about what biblical faith is; that applies to prayer as well. You say generally prayer is thought to be a religious technique for talking some God or higher power into giving the petitioner what he or she wants. In other words, we have to generate this faith, we have to…and through that we tend to manipulate whatever’s out there that will answer our prayers or we think.

Dave: Of course people have other questions too, Tom. Well, if we’re going to pray according to God’s will, which we must, we certainly wouldn’t want to force our will on God, would we?

Tom: Right.

Dave: So then what’s the point of prayer? God’s going to do what He’s going to do anyway. So why pray? Well, I think of the book written about three hundred years ago now, and it was using an illustration of a pastor who said this: “I have learned to appreciate the value of souls, by appearing so often on their behalf in God’s presence.” So we learn a lot in prayer. And we become partners with God. “You do according to my will,” Jesus said, “I’ll answer.” Well, we begin to submit our will to the Lord’s will. He begins to guide us in our lives and we learn something about patience, we learn something about persistence. James says, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man…” Whoops, now we learn that you have an old saying, “You don’t come into court with dirty hands. You come into court, you better be clean yourself or this thing will turn around on you.” So we learn something about what our lives ought to be: in submission to God’s will, walking in purity, and not try to force ourselves on Him. But we take up God’s cause. We shouldn’t be just thinking of ourselves. Most people think, “Well, prayer, you know, that’s how I get what I want.” But what about all the people out there that have needs? That really speaks to my heart. There are so many people. We get quite a prayer list here, Tom, in our ministry. And it’s almost beyond what you can hold in your heart and you think of all the needs of people out there and then I think of a prayer that I pray continually. It was Paul’s desire for Titus—well, he said, “In all things showing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine showing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity…” and then this is the part that I often pray for myself: “…sound speech that cannot be condemned; so that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.” And I say, “Lord help me in all of my contacts with people, everything I say and everything I do, that they won’t be able to find fault, but that I can really get the point across.” All I want in my life, Tom, is to be able to bring Christ to others and to help others to understand God’s Word and to get to know Him better. I have no other purpose in life and that’s my passion and my desire.

So we bring that before the Lord also. “God, help me to help others.” And prayer does a lot for us, for the person who’s praying. It’s not just to get our own way, and it brings us into conformity with God’s will.

Tom: Dave, you’re not just guessing at these things. In other words, last week and the week before we talked about the prayer of the atheist and the agnostic. The very things that you articulated, it seems to me, you got from God’s Word, you got from starting with knowing Him. His salvation, which was offered to you as a free gift, you received that. You began to have a heart for His Word, a desire to know Him, what He desires and so on. We talked last week about His will, knowing what His will is. People say, “Oh, if I just knew God’s will.” (chuckles) Wait a minute! Genesis to Revelation, it lays it out right there for us. So knowing Him is a part of that. It’s a major part. Without it I don’t know—it’s just a guess, it’s everybody’s opinions.

Dave: Tom, I was just reading where God gives the Ten Commandments and the first one, of course, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, will all thy soul, with all thy strength and with all your mind.” And that’s so basic. I look back on my life and I say, “Lord, I’ve really fallen short in that area.” But he doesn’t leave it there. He goes on and He says, “These statutes that I’m giving you now, not just the Ten Commandments, but everything God says in His Word, you’re going to write them on the doorposts of your house. It will be like frontlets between your eyes and you’re going to teach them to your children. You’ll talk about them as you’re walking along in your way. You’ll think about them when you get up and when you go to bed,” and when you consider that, Tom, what better could I occupy my thoughts with than God himself and His Word? And yet, you listen in on the conversation of many Christians, if not most Christians—oh, it’s about the NFL, or the NBA, or the latest in this and the news and so forth. And I’m not saying that that is wrong, but it seems that God has very little place in our thoughts if we’re honest about it. And when you think of who God is, and that he calls us to enter into this relationship with Him—not just to get saved initially as Christians and come to know him and have our sins forgiven, believing that Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again, and now we’ve become Christians. But wow, what a relationship! What a fellowship with Him that we can have twenty-four hours a day. And He asked us to do this and then you think of how far short we come from that.

Well, I think prayer is a way that will bring us more and more into this relationship. But Tom, people have very strange ideas about this. And we talked about positive confession. There are some Christians, they think if you just say it, you can have what you say, just speak it forth. Well, what causes that to happen? No, that’s me in charge again running the universe, telling God. Or we’ve got Mind Science, we’ve got the New Thought Movement back there, and that has permeated the church. If I think positively—we have psychology that tells us this, that there’s some—what it does, Tom, it turns God into a placebo. I think most people know what a placebo is. Placebo is a little sugar pill. They give it to you and say, “Oh, this is a pain killer.” Wow! And what is it—fifty-some percent of the cases, it kills pain. Well, what is happening? Well, Solomon said, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” So there is a connection between our mind and our body. If you’ve got two people of equal ability and one of them believes he’s going to win and the other one thinks he’s going to lose—you know, opposite sides of the net on a tennis court or whatever—it will probably turn out that way. So there is some connection. But what happens now? Well, if I just pray to God, it doesn’t matter what god—any force, any higher power—then that’s like a placebo. It doesn’t matter whether there is a God or not. But if I think there is, whoever he is, or whoever she is, or whatever, it activates this power in my body, in my mind. That’s what I’m trying to do. But that’s unfortunately what a lot of people use prayer for.

Tom: Well, Dave, you’re also describing—you call it a placebo, but in the book you mention these individuals, whether it be positive confession, the mind, the religious sciences, they’re trying to turn faith into a law. And you point out at least four problems with that. I want to go over these.

1) You say the Christian is not under law, but under grace. That’s Roman’s 6:14.

Dave: Now by law, Tom, we mean they’re trying to make this scientific.

Tom: Right.

Dave: So, if you follow these principles, this technique, it will always happen.

Tom: Yeah, but as you point out, grace has no part to play in this supposed law of faith. You also add that the Bible never even hints that the realm of the spirit is governed by laws similar to those governing the physical realm. But again, if we could get it down to—I’m talking about the world—they think they can get it down to a science, then there’s going to be consistency. All I have to do is do this mantra, get involved in this ritual or so on, and that’s going to make it happen on a law basis.

You also point out that the physical laws God has established are intended to control man, and even Adam and Eve were subject to them and to limit what we can do with God’s universe. But this presumed law of faith does just the opposite. It allows each person to become a god, waving a magic wand over the physical universe, and thus does not fit the pattern of laws that God has established.

And finally, the very heart of the prayer pattern Jesus taught His disciples is: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And that’s Matthew:6:10Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
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Dave: Well, Tom, I guess it’s understandable to some extent. God did establish laws, didn’t He? Laws of physics and chemistry; laws of aerodynamics, thermodynamics, and so forth. Well, if it’s that way in the physical realm, then surely it would be that way in the spiritual realm. And that was the error of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science. But of course, she got a little confused on what the spiritual laws might be. She thought that you can just control everything with your mind, and if you really believe it…

I remember, Tom, when I was a boy, we did have some Christian Science friends. We got the impression from them it was all in the mind and that sin was the idea that Adam somehow picked up, a false idea. And if you got rid of this false idea, then it would be okay. The same with pain, or with sickness, and I can remember as a boy saying, “Well, I’m going to walk up behind one of those Christian Scientists and I’m going to give them a good kick in the rear! Well, they don’t know I’m coming. So we’ll find out whether it’s all in the mind or not!”

Tom: Yeah.

Dave: But, Tom….

Tom: Well, you know, a broken arm on a practitioner, a Christian Science practitioner, what are they going to do? They’ve got to go get it set. They have to go beyond illusion, go beyond maya, as the Hindus call it.

Dave: But then, Tom, they say, “But you see, I allowed that Adam-idea to take root in my mind. And that’s why I think my arm is broken.”

It’s, well, as we mentioned, we have some our top parapsychologists. They’re working on this. There’s a mind power and if they could only tap into this and…there is a reality in the physical realm. Two scientists looking through electron microscopes, one in China, and one in the US: at the same moment they discover the same thing, the same truth. The universe isn’t something that we created with our minds. It is something that is sitting there waiting for us to find out what God created and, of course, the subatomic particles just go on and on and on. So we are not creating this with our minds, it’s very, very simple.

But Tom, when it comes to trying to do this through prayer, then we have real problems. Now if I’m seeking—the title of the book, Seeking and Finding God, God says, “You will seek for Me and find Me when you seek for Me with all your heart.” Now, if you’re seeking for some higher power that will be your servant, then you will not find the true God. But now, if I’m really serious about this, I want to know the true God, then I want to know His will. I want to know Him so that I can submit myself to Him and so that He can guide my life. And it is so thrilling when God guides our lives.

Tom: Dave, we have Christians listening to us right now. And they say, “I believe what you guys are saying.” But they might say, “Well, we’re not into Christian Science and positive confession, you know, we don’t believe that,” but then in their practice of business, salesmanship and so on—positive mental attitude. They may have the books. Napoleon Hill, on and on. This is another form of what we’ve been talking about. This is mind science, isn’t it?

Dave: Yeah, you get it in the business world of course. Success motivation training, positive mental attitude training—and probably most major corporations are involved in this. They have their staff get into these seminars where they think positively—and I’m not saying there is no value in that. I already mentioned it, you’d probably be more successful if you think you’re going to be successful than if you are sure you’re going to be a failure.

Tom: But there’s limitations.

Dave: That’s right. That’s not going to create the success. So it unfortunately goes beyond the legitimate use of this. Now, for example, Tom, you’ve got high school classes where they will tell the kids, “Write down on a piece of paper your ambition. What do you want to be? Put that under your pillow and just think about that. Affirm it, look in the mirror.” Okay, let’s say we’ve got a couple of ambitious young men. They’re already executives in some corporation. Let’s say we’ve got a half a dozen of them and they’re all aiming for the president’s chair, okay? Now what does that do to the guy that’s president now? What does that do to each one of them? Now is it the one who can think most positively? The one who can affirm this most strongly?

You see, it has some practical problems. Ultimately it puts me in charge. But there’s a lot of “me’s” out there, all wanting to be in charge. Tom, we have a clash of egos that will never quit. We have six billion-plus little gods. That was Satan’s offer to Eve. “You can become a god too. Just eat this fruit; just disobey God. Turn your back on Him and become your own little god.” So we’ve got a clash of egos; we’ve got 6-point-plus, I don’t know how many, 6.3 billion little gods out there, each one trying to rule over his own empire. Husbands against wives, wives against husbands, children against parents—everybody wants to be the head honcho; we want to run it. And Tom, there’s no hope until all these little egomaniacs get off the throne of their lives and get on their knees and submit themselves to the one true God.

Tom: Dave, the thing—one of the reasons we’re talking about this, the chapter in your book has to do with concerning prayer. What we’re trying to point out—the name of the program here is Search the Scriptures Daily. We want God’s way. We want our listeners to do things God’s way, not based on what we say, but on what God’s Word says. So you have all of these different things, whether it’s in the business world, or false religions and so on—many Christians are drawing them into their understanding. In other words, they’re trying to apply these things to the word of God or to their Christianity, living out their Christianity, and they’re in direct opposition to what the Word of God says.

Some confusion which we haven’t addressed: I’ve mentioned Napoleon Hill, but we have some who claim to be within the church. You have Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking, you have Robert Schuller, Possibility Thinking—these are distortions of faith, these are distortions, and certainly when they’re used in prayer which both these individuals would say, “Yeah, this is the way you go.” Peale and visualizations and so on, which we’ve talked about. But these are corrupting prayer, biblical prayer, corrupting biblical faith.

Dave: And Tom, probably the worst error that can be made with regard to prayer is thinking that it is essential for salvation. Now I’ve got to get on my knees and I’ve got to beg God. There are people who are pleading with God, “Save me, save me.” It’s like, Tom, if I were a multimillionaire or billionaire and I’ve got a thousand dollar bill, I guess there’s such a thing...

Tom: I’ve heard, I’ve never seen one.

Dave: …and I hold it out to you. “Tom, I want to give you this thousand dollar bill.” And you get down on your knees and you say, “Dave, please, would you please, give me a thousand dollars?”

I say, “Tom, here I’m trying to give it to you.”

“Oh Dave, would you please?”

So you can use prayer in that way. There are people who, “Well I want to get saved and I want to get saved.” And they’re begging God, begging Jesus, or, Tom, begging Mary and as an ex-Catholic you could quote a few prayers that you learned where the Holy Father’s Prayer, the Pope’s Prayer for the Marian Year was all about getting salvation from Mary, which is an abomination. Jesus Christ paid the penalty. He offers it. You know, “The wages of sin is death, the gift of God is eternal life.” Now, God is holding out salvation, eternal life as a free gift. What does he require? You don’t beg Him for it. He wants you to receive it. So how do you receive it? By faith. We believe. Thank you, Lord!

I put a million dollars in the bank in your name, Tom, and you’re going around, “I sure wish I had some money. I mean—”

“Well Tom, I gave it to you, it’s in your—”

“Well I don’t know about that, you know and….”

No, God has put it in the heavenly bank in your name. Will you believe it? Will you draw on it? Will you accept the pardon that He offers in Jesus Christ?

Tom: Yeah, so that false sense is basically rejection.

Dave: Mm-hmm.

Tom: He offers it to you as a free gift and it’s there. Put your faith and trust in Him. If you’re not going to do that, you’re rejecting what He’s offered.

Dave: Exactly. What a tragedy.