What the Bible says about Answered Prayer
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Proverbs 16:9 Sometimes those steps move sideways, backwards, or perhaps over a circuitous detour. Sometimes God steers us away from horrendous unseen obstacles while we mistakenly think that He is thwarting us or not answering our prayers. Verse 25 suggests, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Is it possible that, if we always received what we prayed for and set our minds upon, it would also lead to death? Jeremiah 10:23 affirms, "O LORD, I know the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps." He implies that, without God, man's plans always end in failure and ruin. David F. Maas The Spiritual Hard Hat Zone Related Topics: Answered Prayer | God Directs Our Steps | God's Intervention | God's Sovereignty | Unanswered Prayers | Way that seems right to a man

Amos 7:7-9 A major proof of false religion is that it cannot validate its effectiveness before the witness of man, but God can and does validate the true religion. He produces evidence of His righteousness, power, purpose, and way in many forms. God has performed miracles, signs, and wonders in the sight of thousands of witnesses. Without objective assurance from time to time, we would be living in a world of religious make-believe. God sometimes validates Himself before man by advertising His power through an undeniable occurrence like Jesus' resurrection (I Corinthians 15:1-8). Men have verified the truths of God through observation and experimentation (I Kings 18:30-39). Man is thus without excuse (Romans 1:18-25). On occasion, God also verifies our personal relationship with Him by immediately answering a prayer or miraculously saving us from harm. On the other hand, if He needs to get our attention, He will shake us awake by allowing a test or trial to warn us that the relationship is degenerating. Because we are assured that God is with us, the testing is good. It keeps us from sinking into complacency and pride, both of which will separate us from Him. This is what God is addressing in the principle of the plumb line. Amos understood that God was using it to test the spirituality, morality, and genuineness of the people against the standard. The test answers the question, "Are they really God's people?" God wants to know if they are exhibiting His characteristics. This idea of a spiritual standard of measure transferred directly into the New Testament church. God uses similar imagery, a measuring rod, in Revelation 11:1. To the Laodicean church (Revelation 3:14-22), God uses fire to refer to a test instead of a plumb line. As we can see from these examples, the end-time church will be tested. How are we going to build? What will the test reveal about our Christian growth (I Corinthians 3:9-16)? We are commanded to grow "to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13). From this we see that the plumb line is God's revelation of Himself as the standard. At first, God's revelation of Himself was direct, visible, and personal, but later, as Israel grew, He revealed Himself more verbally through the prophets. They recorded His revelation for all time and all people, and we read it today in our Bibles. God's law is the primary vehicle He uses to reveal His nature; it defines how He lives. If we want to be in His Kingdom and live as He does, we must obey His law, but obeying God's law in no way minimizes grace. God revealed Himself to Israel first as Redeemer and then as Lawgiver. He freed His people from their slavery in Egypt before He gave them the standard of His law. Grace precedes law. God gives grace first, but He does not leave His people ignorant of the life that pleases Him, which is revealed in His law. The plumb line combines grace and law, and God will test us against both. If we rely on His grace without law, or on His law without grace, we will not pass the test. If either is abused, we will not measure up to the standard. Leviticus 19 shows that the revelation of the law is important because it is a verbal description of God's nature. Our God is a holy God (verse 2), and He expects His representatives to be holy also. But how do we become holy? After God redeems us from sin and extends to us His Spirit and grace—His free, unmerited election, He expects us to follow His instructions. The remainder of Leviticus 19 fills in the details—we become holy by doing these things. These actions reflect God's nature. Since God is holy, His law is holy, and if we follow His holy law, we can—with the indwelling of His Holy Spirit—grow to be holy like our holy God. God chose Israel and extended the offer for a relationship with Him, to walk and fellowship with Him. After Israel's rejection of it, He has now extended this offer to those He has specifically called and chosen (John 6:44; I Corinthians 1:26-29). God loves His people and gives them redemption, grace. He expects it will result in obedience to His law, the reflection of His nature, so on occasion, He holds a plumb line against them to check their progress. But when He sees that they have rejected His way of life, He has no choice but to try to guide them to repentance—by any means necessary. John W. Ritenbaugh Prepare to Meet Your God! (The Book of Amos) (Part Two) Related Topics: Answered Prayer | False Religion | God's Law | God's Revelation of Himself | Grace | Measuring Rod | Plumb Line | Redemption | Relationship with God | Repentance | Trials

Zechariah 10:1-3 Those who ask for it—sincerely—will get the rain that God promises. These people were obviously worshipping God. He would not have heard them or answered their prayers if they were idolaters. This shows that God does not just withhold rain when sin prevails; it works the other way as well. If we do right, if we ask Him in sincerity and humility, He will give rain in due season. At the end of verse 2 and the beginning of verse 3, God promises to punish the shepherds—a type of either the religious or civil leadership—for leading the sheep into idolatry, ungodly ways, and lies that will not produce any good for them either now or in the long run. He will make His point, and one of the ways that He does so is through drought, lack of rain. Richard T. Ritenbaugh The Two Witnesses (Part Six) Related Topics: Answered Prayer | Drought | God's Punishment of Shepherds | Rain in Due Season | Rain, Withholding of | Withholding Rain

Matthew 16:1-4 Who asked for a sign? Who asked for a miracle? Those whose hearts were farthest from Him, the unbelieving, the hecklers, the critics. These people cared nothing for the real Jesus, so they occasionally became the objects of His scathing denunciations. He calls them "hypocrites" for asking for a sign. Those who ask for signs or seek miracles, who put out the fleece like Gideon did (showing a glaring lack of faith), are actually casting insults on the Word of God. They are calling it into question. They are profaning His name, calling Him a liar because, if He says He will do something, and it is impossible for Him to lie, He will do it! This can be very sobering. It brings to mind an advertisement that used to appear on television every once in awhile featuring a stern-looking woman dressed in a gown, who said, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!" and then thunder pealed! God, surely, takes our immaturity into account, but it is not nice to call Him into question. That is tempting Him. If He says He will do something, He will do it, according to His will. Therefore, calling for a miracle often characterizes carnality, not spirituality. The next question, then, has to be, "Will not God work a miracle in answer to a prayer?" He makes a great many promises, such as healing, which is indeed a miracle. Will He perform a miracle for us? Yes, He will. But if we search His Word, we find more than a dozen qualifications for answered prayer, not just a couple. Some of them are of major importance, some of lesser importance, and He does not require that every qualification be met perfectly. Even so, divine healing in response to answered prayer is not automatic. Whether or not God grants our request seems to boil down to three broad areas—four, actually, but three of them fall on us. One is the way we are living. A second is the understanding involved in the request. The third is the attitude in which the request is made. When those three are combined with God's will, the answer becomes clear: He will do it. However, He will do it in His time and in a way that will give credence to His Word, to His truth, to His purpose. John W. Ritenbaugh Is God a Magician? Related Topics: Answered Prayer | Asking According to God's Will | Divine Healing | Gideon | Hypocrites | Lack of Faith | Miracles | Spiritual Immaturity | Tempting God

 

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