Why Your Prayers Are Not Answered Part 5 by Ed Pruitt

Matthew 21:22-22

Why Your Prayers Are Not Answered!
Part 5
Sunday August 2002
Amarillo Church of God
Pastor Ed Pruitt

I just want to stop for a minute and thank all of you that are here this morning and I just want to praise the Lord again for the new opportunity that He has given us to live for Him today.

And yet He has given us another opportunity to gather back in the house of Worship, to praise from the depth of our hearts!

Now before we get started on our message this morning I want to repeat two or three statements that I made and that will hook us into the message this morning.

We begin to study what prayer really is, much to the surprise of many, we found that Praise is not Prayer.

We need to realize that the devil will insert any of these things that I am mentioning in place of prayer and call it prayer.

Praise is not prayer, praise is defiantly needed we showed you in the scripture that the bible says let everything that has breath Praise the Lord, but nowhere does it say let everything that has breath pray!

Because everything that hath breath can’t pray.

I also said that adoration is not prayer!
We need to have much adoration today, but that’s not prayer!

We found by the scripture that Thanksgiving is not Prayer!

He tells us to come with Thanksgiving and Pray so Thanksgiving is something else than Prayer!

We nailed it down by God’s Word Last Week that Prayer is asking!

We began with the model prayer where Jesus taught His disciples to pray before the Kingdom had ever come with Power.

Before the day of Pentecost and every verse in that prayer is a petition, asking, teaching them to ask!

Prayer is asking, and this morning we want to study by the Word of God and prove to you, that the answer to prayer is receiving what you ask for!

If you didn’t receive what you asked for, you didn’t get an answer to your prayer!

Now that will stop you quick I know it will.

Because we have got many false assumptions about prayer and were going along short, living short of what God has really ordained for us to enjoy!

We told you this morning that we would study why prayers aren’t answered.

We want to begin to study that very thought this morning but as we go into it we want you to hold the thought that prayer is asking, and the answer to prayer is receiving!

I am going to read at least one scripture that I read last week maybe two that will help us to get into the subject and to confirm the fact that prayer is asking, and the answer to prayer is receiving!

Let’s bow our heads

Father we thank thee, that we can ask you, and know how to ask, were glad that were not in darkness were children of light and along with the light and understanding you have given us part of that understanding is to know how to pray, that we will get an answer.

We pray in the name of Jesus this morning that you will move on this scene, we recognize that there is only one teacher the Holy Spirit, we pray that you will be pleased to use these lips of clay, to speak through,

Deliver us from any thoughts of our own quicken my mind with your thoughts Father, and let the Word of God come forth with authority and power

That men and women may be lifted, encouraged, blest, delivered from depression,

My God, faith will be inspired and we will be able to lay hold of more from thee,

How bad we need those good things that only you give Father, help us to know how to pray, to get an answer in Jesus name
AMAN

Now let’s turn to our text

Matthew chapter 21 verse 22 I want to read along with a scripture over in 1st John and were ready to go.

I hope that you have got your bibles with you because we are going to be studying scripture, were not here to tell tales or entertain.

I feel a great burden along the line of prayer because it is so needful this day and time! Matthew 21:22

22 And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

And all things, now I want you to listen closely, this is red letter talk, this is Jesus speaking, and all things whatsoever you ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive.

Now friends if that scripture isn’t true we all might as well close the book, turn out the lights and go home!

Because if the devil can work on us and convince us that, that verse of scripture doesn’t mean what it said, my friend he can convince us of every verse in the bible and we can lose it all.

But I am here to tell you this morning that verse of scripture means exactly what it says!

And all things whatsoever you ask in prayer believing, you shall receive!

Over in 1st John these scriptures my friend deal with asking and receiving
In 1st John the 3rd chapter verse 21 and 22
1 John 3:21-22
21 Beloved, if our hearts condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.

22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

I know that these are strong scriptures and I know that they are contrary to the belief of many people that claim to be Christians.

I am not here to run anyone down, were here to study God’s word together, but I want you to see this morning even though we spent a lot time in study last week that definite prayer, is asking!

We used scripture after scripture to prove you, we showed to you that there were at least 34 positive prayers in the scriptures where people asked for definite things and got that very thing that they asked for, the very moment that they believed.

I am sorry that you couldn’t be here last week but we used definite text amen that proved that prayer is defiantly asking and when you ask believing we receive, not something else but receive what we ask for!

In the 7th chapter of Matthew another scripture that we used last week and I want to look at it again Jesus gets very specific here.

In Matthew 7:7
Ask and it shall be given you (what will be given you? what you ask for!)

Now somebody said that He don’t mean here that He will give you just what you ask for, see I can see your minds wondering already.

Old traditions, suppositions, false conceptions, spirits of unbelief, works on our mind and we actually read the bible we know just what it said there.

But these seducing spirits in there work through the many things that I have mentioned will just pickup that word from our mind, take the possessiveness of it away and plant something else there.

Well it don’t mean just that, it don’t mean that you get just exactly what you ask for!

Come on, you have heard other preachers do that and you also have said were parents you know, stay with me a little bit,

We begin to liken ourselves as parents and you know how we are children ask for things that are not good for them so we don’t give them what they ask for, we give them what’s good for them, and we say that’s the way that God works.

I would like for anybody this morning, or any day of the week to read that out of the bible to me!

Now come on, Oh it’s taught for bible, but there’s lot’s of things taught today that isn’t bible!

I am here again this morning to tell you that there isn’t a thing in the bible that says that God will give you what’s best for you.

But there is lot’s of scriptures that will tell you that He will give you what you ask for!

Come on, if He really hears your prayer, see if you don’t ask according to His will, 1st John the 5th chapter says that He don’t even hear you!
AMAN
If He hears your prayers, when you ask, you will get exactly what you ask for!

Somebody says that He don’t make it that definite that you get just what you ask for,

Now listen I am talking this morning about things that disagrees with a lot of peoples theology too.

I have a pastor friend and his wife that don’t believe that you get just what you ask for and you can tell by the way some people look at you when you tell them the truth, that they don’t know what to think.

Because this bible teaching goes totally against what a lot of people think and usually it is because of their lack of faith, so they try to cover up the truth with doubts!

But when you really study the Word of God and ask for His guidance in your studying, the Word of God will open up to you and take all of the wrinkles out and you will hear the Holy Spirit in a small voice say, man where did you read that in the word?
Why!

It’s there, I know that it’s there I have heard preachers that have preached that way for years and they still do.

But oh what a time you have finding it when you start to look.

And then you begin to think back and you find that some good old brother that you had a lot of confidence in got up and preached that way.

Now you see how it is?

Because you had so much confidence in that preacher, you thought that he was actually preaching bible!

But he was preaching a supposition, he supposed that it was that way.

Now we need to get rid of those suppositions if were going to have power with God and get back to the blessed old bible, read it like it is.

Don’t allow your mind to wonder Aman, let the word be imprinted on your heart and mind just exactly like it’s written!

Somebody said God don’t specifically say that He will give you what you ask.

Well let’s read it!
Ask and it shall be given you, Seek and ye shall find, Knock and it be opened unto you, For everyone that asketh, receiveth!

Did you ever hear a preacher stand in the pulpit and say, now everybody don’t get their prayer answered.

Now where did he read that?

Everyone that asketh, receiveth!

Come on, not 95%, everyone!

AMAN!

How many believe this?

Aman!

People don’t really believe what the bible says!

Now friends were in bad shape when the believers don’t believe!

How can we ever expect the world to believe?

All I did was read some scripture here and were hung up already!

Somebody said, well it didn’t work like that for me.
Well I am not preaching your experience, I am preaching bible!

If it didn’t work like that for you, there is a reason and were going to find out what the reason is before we stop preaching this series on prayer!

Were running a faith clinic over here!

God can find where the poison blood is in your stream!

AMAN

He will get it out!

Let’s read some more,
Matthew 7:7-11
7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

Now don’t tell me that this isn’t specific!
9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?

10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?

What’s He teaching?

That you don’t ask for one thing and God gives you something different!

That’s exactly what He is trying to teach us!

He gives you what you ask for!

11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

For everyone that asketh, receiveth and he that seeketh findeth and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

Now don’t tell me that this isn’t specific!

What man of there is you that if his son asks for bread, you will give him a stone? or a fish you would give him a serpent?

What’s He teaching?

That you don’t ask for one thing and God give you something else!

That’s exactly what He is trying to teach to us!

You get what you ask for!

You read Luke the 11th chapter, where Luke wrote the same thing you go on down and he said, if your son asks for an egg, you don’t give him a scorpion,

He listed many things teaching us one truth, that God is specific about this!

What you ask for you get!

Don’t ever let the devil take something away from you that’s yours!

This is the trouble now!

Do you know why the Church doesn’t have more power that it has?

The church has allowed the devil to make you believe that if you can’t get the best from God, well we can take second or third best, something else.

You don’t have to take nothing but the best!

God’s got the best for us!

God deals in good things and He came right on in that next verse in the 7th chapter of Matthew and said if evil men and women know how to give good gifts to their children,

What kind of gifts are they giving?
He just read it to you, if your son asks for a fish you wouldn’t give him a stone!

Now come on if we as parents wouldn’t do that!

See what I am telling you?

The bible teaches just the opposite of what preachers teach.

Come on, preachers have been teaching that you ask for one thing God might give you something else because what you ask for might not be good for you!

But the bible teaches just the opposite of that,

God is going to give you just what you ask for!

I am not going to ask you for a show of hands, how many of you believe that but it’s so anyway!

It was so before I preached and it will be so after I leave this morning and it will be so tomorrow, it’s bible, sure it will stand.

The last sermon on prayer we showed that He got specific and we dealt with several of those prayers that was specific asking and God gave specific answers.

My friend, and He taught us how that in real prayer there’s importunity we don’t give up because we don’t get what we want right away.

I just leave that much with you and saying this morning, if the arrow of prayer ever enters heaven it must be drawn from a soul that’s full bent!

Let me repeat that.

If the arrow of prayer ever enters heaven it must come from a soul that’s full bent.

Just as much as you would shoot a little bow and arrow friend if you are going to shoot a distance with force that bow is going to have to be full bent!

Friends, if we are going to get our prayers through in the kind of world that we are living in now, and reach God on His throne and get an answer back with what we are standing in need of, our souls are going to have to be full bent in prayer!

This lacks a daisy, maybe, half hearted, apathy, indifference, will never get the work done!

I want to nail down the fact that the answer to prayer we just read it to you here in the 7th chapter of Matthew, but we want to look other places.

The answer to prayer is receiving what you ask for!
I quoted to you and read from some great theologians book
in our day and time.

They are writing books today. I am talking about leaders out here in Protestantism, my friends we find that many of them are faithless.

We quoted to you from one book and he tells us definitely that this thing of people going around thinking that they are children of God

And I quote him again and ask for miracles and ask for things from some divine Santa clause in heaven, that stuff is foolishness

That God never ordained prayer for us to ask anything from Him, that prayer is merely meditation and spiritual fellowship with God.

My friend that very spirit and that very teaching that such individuals as that is putting out is effecting the minds of the people!

And till when it comes right down to putting in for definite things from God and expecting to get them, there’s too many that don’t have the faith to lay hold of it and hold onto it until God moves.

Now the bible teaches different than that.

I want to say that there’s many alibis today made for the fruitfulness of prayers.

Oh I might say the fruitlessness of prayers.

We have the teaching today, I mentioned it last week and it will fit right in our lesson now.

The teaching today that God answers prayer in three ways, yes, no and wait a while!

There again I want you to read that to me out of the bible.

Where anywhere in the bible God answers prayer in three ways!

I can heap up scripture on scripture where it says when you ask you will receive what you ask for!
AMAN!

This idea has got right in among the people of God, until many times if we don’t receive what we ask for, we take for granite that God say’s no!

It’s not good for us to have it!

And we kind of rest it there and say that we got our answer to prayer.


But I want you to understand by the scripture this morning,
the only real answer to your prayer is God giving you what you ask for!

If you don’t get it you never got an answer!

Now right here is where the hang up is!

Too many take for granite they got an answer!

They merely take the fact that God didn’t give it to them as an answer.

But the bible teaches that the only real answer to prayer is God sending what you ask for!

If you don’t get that you didn’t get an answer, and you need to do some seeking to see what the trouble is!

You must have a line down!

Your prayer didn’t get through!

AMAN!

Now you think with me just a little bit, somebody said don’t you think that God might answer yes, no or maybe, or wait awhile?

I told you before that I used to think that till the word of God raised up in such a witness against those thoughts!

That God’s answer, AMAN is not yes, no, or maybe, or wait awhile!

Now we realize this morning that we must be content with the Will of God, but this is not what the bible is teaching about prayer!

Later on this morning if the time holds out or at least next week we will be teaching on this thing of using the clause in your prayer, if it be Your Will Lord!

Well I can prove to you by the bible that God never hears a prayer like that!
Aman!

See friends, well somebody says that Jesus used that in His prayer Gethsemane after He prayed three times He said, however not my will but thine be done,

That’s right, but listen to me, He knew the will of God when He said that.

He wasn’t using it as an escape like we do today because we don’t know the Will of God, we just hang on if it be Your Will.

And I want to tell you many times if we hang on that if it be Your Will, it’s not a mark of our submission, it’s a mark of our unbelief!

It’s a mark that we haven’t dug into God’s Word, and prayed to the place that we found His Will, and know how to pray.

Now you mark it down, Jesus knew what the Will of God was when He said if it be Thy Will.

He knew the Will of God before He come down from Heaven.

He knew it after He got down here.

Somebody said well then how come He started praying that way?

Easy one, His flesh got the best of Him!

That’s why you pray that way!

AMAN!

He told you right in the scripture if you will read it, The Spirits willing, but My flesh is weak!

And weak flesh, my friend will still cause you to stop short.

Oh I pray that God will help us to see this morning, my friend, that the answer to prayer
Aman.

A specific prayer is specifically asking according
to God’s Will!

And answer to that prayer is God giving to you what you ask!

Now I want you to consider just a little bit what this business of God answering in three ways is doing to us!

Do you know what this kind of business is doing?

It’s making prayer a mystical and in an indefinite manor.

Nobody knows for sure when they pray if they are going to get it or not.

And when you pray that way you can’t pray in faith!

Now come on, let’s just boil this thing down!

Man this thing has worked on our hearts and minds until prayer is a mystical something!

When we pray we don’t know for sure if we are going to get it or not!

When the Bible say’s, when you pray you must believe you have it or you will never receive it!

Come on, you hear people say that prayer is a nice thing to engage in, makes you feel a little better after you talk to God.

But you can ask somebody when they get up from prayer, no matter how fervent they got in there prayer, are you going to receive?

Well I don’t know, if it’s God’s Will the I will get it.

Well they don’t know a bit more that they did before they got down to pray!

Amen!

God never intended prayer to be such as this.

And I can prove to you in the morning time church in the Act’s of the apostle, prayer was not such as this!

Jesus didn’t teach prayer, to be carried on such as this!

But my friend, through the very realms of the falsities of religion and the devil being allowed and given place, he has led people away from the solid praying ground.

And prayer has become a mystical something.

Where we get to praying and say that we hope that we will get it, you will never get nothing, hoping that you will get it!

You will get what you pray for by faith, and that’s the only way that you will get it!

Hope’s not faith!

Hopes a wonderful thing, but it’s not faith!

Well somebody said well Brother Pruitt, your just finding fault!

Well thank you!

I thought that there was some there, I am glad that I found some!

AMAN!

Let’s get back to the bible. God help us!

I say this kind of business, that’s going on in praying, and I want to show you something!

It don’t take much of this kind of praying that I am talking about right here, where prayer is left in a mystical state, you pray, you hope that you receive it, your not sure, and about 99% of the time you don’t receive it!

And because of that it’s harder for you to pray all of the time.

Now come on, I want to get into this area of why it’s so hard for people to pray!

Why do you see people that will go to the alter and when you talk to them and ask them what is there problem’s they will tell you that they have a hard time trying to pray!

Well I wonder why?

Nobody would have a hard time praying if they got what they asked for every time you prayed!

Man it would be joyous!

Aman!

Do you know why it’s hard to pray?

This thing has got a hold of you that I am preaching about, and you don’t get what you go after and go again and you don’t get what you go after, and you kind of settle that it wasn’t God’s Will for you to have it,

And the first thing that you know, your going to end up that it isn’t God’s Will for you to have anything!

Come on! Not even salvation!

You get discouraged you go down in despair.

There’s no doubt, hundreds of people setting on the outskirts of the church this morning that once had an experience, good experience, but the thing got a hold of them and finally wore them out!

Brother this kind of praying that we are talking about right now won’t make Christians, it will make infidels out of us!

It will work on us to the place that we don’t believe that God answers prayer like it says!

And I want you to see that it’s a Spirit, it’s a reality, it’s a real thing, it’s a part of Armageddon that going on in a heated state!

Armageddon is a spiritual warfare, a spiritual conflict, truth against error, right against wrong and our supply line is clipped!

The devil is using strategy like never before to cut off our supply line!

It’s harder and harder to get supplies through today.

Why?

Because of much of this seed that the devil has sowed in the minds of God’s people.

Stuff like, God don’t always give you what you ask for.
AMAN!

This is what makes it so tough when you try to preach the truth.

Why?

Your minds are so cluttered up with these other ideas, that when truth is presented, Bible truth is presented, you can’t hardly swallow it.

Why? There’s no place for it to fit into your puzzle!

It’s contrary to your thinking.

I pray that God will help us!

My friends, God doesn’t want prayer to be mystical, indefinite.

I say that this leaves the impression that there’s not much use of praying.

People have gotten so carried away with this spirit that I am preaching against this morning, that if God just moves according to His Will, there isn’t any need of us praying, His Will, will be done.

Come on, here is where you will end up!

Come on, if God’s Will is going to be done, the preacher says His will be done no matter what the devil does, no matter what people does, His Will, will be done.

Well if His Will be done then there is no use in praying.

It will be done. But you know that is contrary.

Just good common reasoning let’s you know that’s contrary.

We need to note this morning, that anything that makes prayer indefinite and makes the answer to prayer seem uncertain, is contrary to the teaching of God’s Word!

Let me nail that down again, anything that makes prayer indefinite and makes the answer seem uncertain, is contrary to the plain teachings of God’s Word!

I guess that I am going to have to back up and widen out a little bit, because you can’t seem to grasp this.

I want you to think with me a little bit, now listen, we couldn’t be content with such a slipshod arrangement in any other realm of life.

Other things we have to know definite about it, and now you are going to tell me that man in his plans can be more definite?

Where you can make definite moves, know that you are going to get what you ask for, can you tell me that man in his plan is more definite than God in His plan?

Now just suppose that we use this thing, just like we go in prayer, we pray, and when we get up we say, Lord if it is Your Will.

We get up we hope that we get it, but were not sure, because we don’t know if it is the Will of God, we may get that, or we may get something else, or we may get nothing.

And that’s usually what we get, were blessed with nothing, when it comes to spiritual blessings and power and privileges.

Now come on, you wouldn’t put up with that kind of business in other realms of life!

I want to show you that the devil can work schemes and works in religion, that man wouldn’t put up with anywhere else a minute!

He can get you putting up with and going along with it.

We wouldn’t put up with such slipshod arrangements in the realms of life you know you wouldn’t!

Suppose you drive in the Gas Station after church, one of the few full service stations that we still have left in this town, and you tell the man, I want 10 gallons of gas.
And to that he gives you this response, we’ll, I’ll see maybe, you just wait awhile!

Now come on, I just want you to see what fools we have been!

What fools the devil has made out of us while we have been so busy after the flesh.

Come on, how long would you set there?

Your wife would say let’s go, and you would tell her oh no, let’s don’t go, I got an answer.

I want 10 gallons of gas!

Well I don’t know, you need to wait awhile, I am not sure whether you need gas or not.

About that time your response to the gas man is going to be look fellow I didn’t ask you what I need, I knew what I needed before I asked for it!

Come on now, how long would you put up with that?

Finally the gasman says, oh you think you need gas hunh?

We you just wait I’ll fix you up, and then he comes around and say’s give me the money, and you say did you put the gas in?

He says, no, I put soapsuds in.
I think that you need soapsuds in your tank.

Now come on, how long would you put up with that?

Well some of you might say that I am just being silly, no I am not I am teaching Bible.

Jesus taught specific truth’s that when you ask for bread you don’t get a stone!

Certainly we need to know what we need before we ask, and we need to ask, according to that, and we need to know that God will give us what we ask for, when we have asked according to His Will!

This thing of prayer has got to be more definite!

I could give you another illustration suppose someone here asked the person that you loved to marry you, and when you asked them they say well I don’t know you wait awhile.

Man I could meet you tomorrow and you would just be beaming all over, and you would say to me man I asked so an so to marry me last night and I got my answer.

Now you know that you wouldn’t be acting that way, the only answer that you are going to be looking for is YES!
AMAN!!!

Your not going to be satisfied until you get that answer.
You wouldn’t think that you got any answer at all, with an answer like that!

No! No! No!

And I say this morning neither should a Christian be content until they can be in such close touch with God that they can rejoice in a YES from God, in an answer to their prayer!

I want to tell you right now, come on now we will be fair, we will show you where the Apostle Paul, prayed amiss Jesus prayed amiss, the flesh can get in on us!
AMAN

Friend, the point is this morning, our praying needs to be, and we are not praying as God wants us to pray, until we can pray in such a way,

with such a contact with God, and such a knowledge of His Will for our lives, that He can say yes I’ll give it to you!

I know that there are people that feel that they just can’t live that way, and do you know what?

They never will be that way, in there praying as long as they feel that way.

I want to repeat and I hope that you red lettered and drew a circle around Matthew 7:7-10, these scriptures I repeat in these scriptures there is not a hint that we should expect God to say no, or wait a while.

There is not the first hint!

I say my friend, that this kind of praying, that has been going on in the past will make infidels out of people.

Believe me this morning, an answer to prayer is a granting, of the thing, which a child of God asks his heavenly father, according to the directions which his Father has clearly laid down for him to ask by!

Let me say that again, somebody might say, is that the only answer to prayer?

Biblically speaking, that’s the only answer to prayer.

God doesn’t say no.

Somebody might say, well then what does He say when I pray wrong?

Nothing! Nothing!

And you take nothing as an answer from God.

He never answered you!

Come on, come on, the answer to prayer is yes!
Aman, Aman!

Well somebody might say well I didn’t get that answer, well then you didn’t get any answer.

You need to do some searching in your life, start seeking out the Will of God, get your prayers straightened out, there isn’t anything wrong with God, the trouble is with you!

Can’t you see how the devil has done this?

It’s you and I that didn’t pray right, and the devil has got us saying, it wasn’t God’s Will to give it to us!

That dirty old devil, he always blames it on to God.

It isn’t God’s fault it’s our fault!

God will only answer by giving you what you ask for!

Everyone that asketh, we teach gets an answer.

He didn’t say that!

Everyone that asketh, receiveth!

So if you didn’t receive, then you didn’t ask right!

I would like to ask you, if you see that, to raise your hand, but I am afraid to.
Friend I want to tell you something, were in worse shape than were ready to own.

We went around on and rested on our laurels and if we can’t get it from God then we will go to the doctor and get it,

If we can’t get it from God, the we will go to the bank and get it, and if we can’t have the fire of God’s Spirit burning in our midst we turn the furnace up and make it hot in there.

Come on, come on, and the devil has robbed us long enough,

It’s time for the Church of God to raise up on it’s heels and serve notice to the devil,

I am sick of this kind of business, I want the manifestation of God’s power just like the Word of God teaches us!

I want to get on praying ground, I quit right now taking no for an answer from God, because God doesn’t put out any no’s.

Come on, Somebody says oh come on now, well look at it this way.

We have songs where we sing No, No, a thousand time no, Jesus will never say no,

Then the preach gets up and says sometimes God says no, well make up your fool mind, don’t sing one thing and preach something else!
God doesn’t say no, everyone that asketh, receiveth!

See we have got more traditions around us than we are ready to own, suppositions and false ideas.

Teaching them for truth and wonder why people aren’t getting things from God.

So believe me this morning, an answer to prayer is a granting of the things, which a child of God asks his Heavenly Father,
according to the directions which his Father has clearly laid down.

And he receives what he asks for!

That’s his answer!

Now if a Christian prays in a normal and scriptural manor, and does not receive, what he asks for,

He needs to begin a complete and total investigation of his self to find out what the trouble is in his live!

It’s much easier just to say, it wasn’t God’s Will for Him to give it to me, I asked Him, but He said no, and it’s OK.

Now that kind of business does not glorify God!

One of the way’s that the church is to glorify God, by getting answers, definite answers to prayer right in the midst of a world of unbelief.

That’s one of the main ways that God has given us to glorify God!

I say, if a Christian prays, and I know that I repeat some of these things, but I want you to get them.

If a Christian prays in a normal and scriptural manor and does not receive what he asks for,

He needs to began a complete investigation.

We know that God isn’t wrong,

So we must discover by the Word of God and by the leading of the Holy Spirit, why his prayer has not been accepted!
AMAN

I say this makes prayer a simple and understandable business, when we look at it this way!

Very simple and understandable

Somebody said, Brother Pruitt are you holding to the fact that the only answer to prayer is, and the only way that you know that you prayed right is you got the answer?

That you receive what you ask for?

Absolutely!

That’s what the bible teaches!

See much that we have been calling praying is not praying.

Not real praying, because it’s not getting the job done!

I might illustrate that where you could lay a hold of it, that the right answer,

I might ask you to put a column of figures down on a piece of paper and ask you to add them up!

The only way that I know that you know that you know how to add up a column of figures is if you get the right answer!

Now, come on, you can profess all that you want, and say boy I really know how to add, I can do it fast, but if you don’t get the right answer you don’t know how to add!

Well if you don’t get the right answer you don’t know how to pray!

It’s just that simple!

Oh I really know how to do it,

Not if you don’t get the right answer!

This is where you are deceived, and this is where God wants to help us!

In James the 4th chapter another familure were going to start now into this thought of why peoples prayers, are not answered!

Now we have already studied this that God only has one answer according to the scriptures, I used quite a number of scriptures last week proving to you that prayer is asking and the answer is receiving!

That’s the only answer God has!

We like to gloat and say that we are the children of light, we are not in darkness like the world is, well are we?

Cone on, are we the children of light?

Well if we are then we shouldn’t be in darkness about to pray!

We shouldn’t have to stumble around and then put on the end of our prayers, Lord I don’t know if this is right but if it is then give it to me and if it isn’t then it will be all right.

Man that’s a dark prayer!

Aman!
James the 4th chapter now we want to study this business on why your prayers are not answered, I hope that everyone understands this, it seems that it is needful that I repeat it.

That friend if you didn’t receive what you asked for, you didn’t pray right, you didn’t pray right, you didn’t ask right.

Because when you ask right, everyone that asketh, receiveth!!!

Let’s get this business fixed, God still gives what people ask for when they ask right!

And when you don’t ask right he don’t tell you no! He doesn’t answer!

The answer is receiving, and if you didn’t receive then you didn’t get an answer!

Well why don’t people receive what they ask for?

Chapter 4 in James

This scripture that we are going to read is written to the children of God not to the world.

If you will read James the 1st chapter the 1st 3 verses you will find that it is written to the 12 tribes scattered abroad and the 2nd verse said my brethren.

A lot of time we go into this scripture and we really give the world a lacing.

But James wasn’t writing to the world here.

He was writing, to his brethren that had let things get a hold of them, confusion had come over their minds, there were many things working in their lives that were contrary to the principles of truth that were laid down by Jesus Christ.

Now I want to read that 4th chapter of James.

We want to study this business why your prayers aren’t answered.

I hope that everyone can understand this, this morning it seems needful that I repeat it, that friend, if you didn’t receive what you asked for, then you didn’t pray right!

You didn’t pray right, you didn’t ask right, because when you ask right, everyone that asketh right receiveth!

Let’s get this business fixed this morning!

God still gives what people ask for when they ask right!

And when you don’t ask right, He doesn’t tell you no!

He don’t answer.

The answer is receiving and if you didn’t receive then you didn’t get an answer!

Well why don’t people receive what they ask for?

James 4:1-3
From whence come wars and fightings among you? ( now he is not talking about wars of nations and hot wars and cold wars he is talking about wars between church members ) come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?

2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and
cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.

3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

Let’s look at why people that do ask don’t receive?

And when they don’t receive they don’t even get an answer!

James just gave us two reasons why we don’t receive from God!

First of all because you don’t ask!

And the second reason, when you do ask, you ask amiss, you don’t ask right!
In other words, he said you don’t have because you don’t pray and ask God!

And secondly, he said when you do pray you pray wrong!

And you don’t receive!

No matter how much God wants to give it to you He can’t give it to you because your praying amiss!

Now let’s just look at this praying and praying wrong.

I want us to realize this morning that man is a creature abounding in wants!

You know that, friends, our wants never stop.

I want, I want, I want, you hear people going down the street I’ll tell you what I want, listen to people!!!

And after we get that fixed, we want! And on and on we go.

I say all that, that we might better understand ourselves what kind of creatures that we really are.

We can better be equipped to take care of ourselves if we understand ourselves better.

And we, are a creature, that’s abundant in wants.

And you see what it says here, these lustings, the word lust here merely means strong desires it tells us sometimes is such a burning desire that it gets the best of our better judgement!

This is the case of people that are out away from God this morning, there perverted, there not living a life like God wants man to live there’s lives are perverted!

A man’s perverted when he drinks, a man’s perverted when he takes drugs, a man’s perverted when he smokes, a man’s perverted when he runs with women of every kind!

His life’s perverted! What happened to him?

The strong desires that are within him over road his good judgement, he doesn’t know how to handle them and he is going after them and what a miserable shape he is in and that 2nd verse tells us what a miserable shape he is in, James 4:2
2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.

What a pitiful state our world is in this morning where the lusts and desires of man has over road his judgement, over powered his thought’s, and he out today, he is after what he wants if he has to kill to get it.

And yet after he does all of that, he can’t obtain it.

He will never obtain it, the world isn’t never going to find what they are looking for out there.

Why?

Real lives today don’t consist in the abundance of things that you can think about that you want.

Look at the way people act today, you hear people say, well you’re a pretty good fellow, but if you get in my way getting what I want look out I’ll step on you to get what I want!

Come on, dog eat dog!

And in all the going after that they are doing there never obtaining what they are looking for.

Why?

Because your satisfaction that they are seeking for can never be obtained in things!

That your mind and heart go’s out after.

A terrible condition got on God’s people in that morning time falling away and I am telling you that there is a terrible condition working on people today!

Too many that claim to be people of God fall right over that 2nd verse
They desire to have and cannot obtain it!

I say that’s a miserable state to be in, and I can come in to the things of the world from the things of the world now, there too many people that are bound setting right in churches today.

They desire to have a real spiritual life and a real prayer life, but they can’t ever obtain it!

The same spirit that’s got those people out in the world has come right in among the ranks of the church and got people bound right in our midst!

Never able to obtain!

See we pitched desires there on you, all the worldly desires the things of the world and the things out there,

We can come into the spiritual realm, the Christian this morning desires the things of the spirit and he doesn’t know how to ask for them!

But friend there’s spirits today that’s binding people that there never able to obtain the victory that they desire!

Somebody might say, that is painting a poor picture of Christianity, I am not downing the power of Christianity one bit.

Right at the present I am preaching against spirits that wrecked the morning time church, millions fell away never to get back to God.

And we are seeing that same spirit in an evening time falling away just like the 24th chapter of Matthew teaches us and the same spirit is working on people as we read it right here.

This James gospel is up to date just as sure as we are here.

See it says that you fight and you war and you have not aman, and you have not because you ask not.

Now I want you to see something, this a picture of many that claim to have an experience with God today but they’re out in the rat race of life trying to obtain things like the world does!

And some of them go so low that they try to obtain it by hook or crook and still claim to be Christians.

I want you to settle down this morning God never intended for us as the church to get what we need like the world gets it!

This is the lesson that He is trying to teach!

And if were not careful we will fall to the level of this world, and say well if I am going to have anything at all, then I am going to have to fight for it.

I have got to fight for my right’s!
That man shouldn’t have got a raise ahead of me!

I’ve been there longer than he has!

Boy they are going to hear about this!

Well this kind of attitude is exactly what he is talking about you have gotten clear off of praying ground your fighting and fussing for your position just like the world does!

Your right down in line with the people of the world.

You get a letter from the IRS and people hear you say, just wait until I go down there!

They will know that someone has visited them!

Go ahead, fuss and fight and war, kill.

Now come on, what’s He teaching us?

After you do all of that fussing and carrying on you still don’t have!

Why?

God intended for us as Christians to ask for it!

You need a raise?

You don’t have to go ask the boss!

Aman!

A preacher friend of mine, Brother Emerson Wilson of Newark Ohio, told a story about a place where he was in a revival and a man came into the service and asked that they pray that he could find a job.

Brother Wilson asked the preacher after the service if that man really needed a job and the other preacher said yes, he is a good man and he really needs a job.

So Brother Wilson stopped that man before he could out of church that evening and asked him, do you believe that God can get you a job tomorrow?

The man said yes and Brother Wilson laid hands on him and ask God to help him find a job, the man came back to the service the next night and testified that God had gotten him a job!

See that is what I am talking about, you don’t have to fight an fuss and go like the world does and go thru the red tape!

You have the privilege of prayer!

You don’t have because you don’t ask!

Come on, your falling to the level of the world!
So we go out here and try to pull the strings and we get into politics not in politics in high places but politics in the factories and on the jobs, aman and we got to know who got to know the right fellow!

We got to take him out to dinner and John Jones took him out to dinner and I have got to take him out twice!

Come on were sweating it out were trying to get this and then that and then you get the other and we forgot that we can pray!

You have not because you ask not!

I am talking about you don’t have because you don’t ask!

We have gotten down to such a fleshly level that the first thing that we think about is human help!

Come on, let’s face it now, it’s human help!

Do you know why the natural man doesn’t ask God?

Because it’s just not a natural thing for the natural man to pray!

A bit more than it is for a natural man to fly!

That’s why with the natural man he will try everything else!

You know that is right, look at people whether there are saved or not, they get some terrible sickness like cancer and after they have spent all of the money that they have and the doctor has tried everything that he could, then they call for the preacher!

Come on, now why is that?

It’s just natural, it’s just not natural for natural man without God to pray, and the more natural you and I become and the less spiritual we become, the more we look to human realm first!

Come on, pain hits, call the doctor get me a pill! Aman!

Come on God’s not last aid He’s first aid!

Come on, you hear people say that God’s first in there life, but wait until the pain hits!

Help, call the doctor!

Come on,

God’s not first in your life!

That’s just a big tale that your telling us!

Aman!

We have just become so natural that we can’t be spiritual!

So God said you fuss you quarrel you kill, and somebody says, oh we have never killed anybody, well you need to study right on down there what killing is in the bible!

If you have hate in your heart, anger towards someone according to God’s understanding you’re a killer, you have already killed them!

There has been lot’s of killing going on that you didn’t even know that you were doing!

It is always wrong to have a fighting spirit!

The Spirit of Christ is not a fighting Spirit.

The kingdom of the world is full of fighting spirits!

Not God’s Kingdom!

That is what it has fallen to.

Men’s world, men’s government.

Let’s get back and read it again,
James 4:2
2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
Oh Church of God get this point, and I am going on.

You don’t have it because you don’t ask God!

And I dare say this morning, hanging right in front of a big percentage of the Christians in this building is a long list of things that you could have.

Gift’s of the Spirit, mighty movings of God’s power,

I could list them, but you don’t have them, and the reason that you don’t have them cause your willing to go along like you are,

You don’t ask for it!
Brother those good gift’s of the Spirit you have got to covet them, that’s a degree more than asking!

You have not because you ask not!

Oh may God help us, somebody says well Brother Pruitt the essence of that verse is then, we need to start asking, that’s right!

Start asking!

Philippians 4:19
19 But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Paul said in that scripture, thru Jesus Christ we can have all our needs supplied! Aman

Oh there’s needs, this morning, God’s dear people has needs this morning and my God shall supply!

All your needs,

How come they haven’t been supplied?

You don’t ask!

Somebody says oh I prayed and I didn’t get it!

Well let’s get right back to the asking in the right way,

Aman!

See my friend because it’s unnatural for natural people to pray and he despises the idea of supplication.

The devil let’s you know that it is a waste of time to get down and pray!

You ought to be up doing something to work out your problems instead of being down on your knees.

He believes in works, he doesn’t believe in praying!

That’s exactly what has gotten a hold of people today!
And James is bringing us back to the fact that we have not because we ask not!

Now come on down to verse 2 and 3,
James 4:2-3
2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.

That’s the first reason, here’s the second one

Now some of you it says,

3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

The way that you ask amiss, is that you might consume it on your own lusts.

God help us here, He let’s us see in the second and the third verse that we must get on praying ground before we will receive!

We may ask and receive not,

Now come on the first charge that you had, you don’t ask, and the other group of people, you do ask but you ask amiss, you ask wrong.

The reason that you ask wrong is because you pray selfishly!
That you may consume it on your own lust’s!

How much selfish praying goes on, and God doesn’t hear a one of them!

They never get past the roof.

How come you pray amiss? Because you pray selfishly!

Many a person prays year after year for their loved ones to be saved and still nothing happens when it’s God Will that no one should perish it is God’s Will that all come to repentance!

When you pray for people to be saved, if you pray right and you pray according to the Will of God,

And 1st John the 5th chapter said if you ask according to His Will He hears you and when He hears you know that you have the petition that you ask for!

Now how come people pray amiss? They pray selfishly.

Look at this example Lord save my husband, oh my Lord if you would save my husband it would be so much easier on me and the children if he would start treating me right and take us to church!

That’s a selfish prayer, come on you only want the Lord to save him not to keep him from hell not to let him enjoy the joys of salvation but so your state will be better.
Aman, God don’t even hear that prayer!

There is a lot of selfish praying going on right in the church oh Lord clean the church up and give us power.

Lord we want power, God give us power so we can reach people, we want to be the biggest thing in town!

Well you don’t say that, but God sees it down in your heart.

See, God reads the words of the heart!

Come on you don’t want the people to come in and be saved so they can enjoy the glory of God and the goodness of salvation, you want a big church!

Another man prays Lord save my boss, he’s worse than the devil to work for.

My God I wish that you would save that man so I could have a decent boss.

Your praying amiss, come on, it’s going on everyday!

God save my neighbor, she’s worse than the devils sister my I would love to have a good neighbor, God doesn’t hear that prayer!

Why?

It’s all for your benefit, you pray amiss!

The preacher gets ready to preach!

Lord bless me, anoint me, my God I want to do good for you.

You say that when you pray, but when He looks down into our hearts he sees that the real thing that you want is to do good in front of the people!

You get up in front of the people and your flatter that a pancake!

Your flat. Why? You prayed amiss!

It’s not always the words that come out of your mouth!

God isn’t listening to what comes out of your mouth He’s reading the prayer off your heart!

A deaf and dumb person can pray and raise the roof off the place and never speak a word!

Why?

God reads the burden off the heart!

He sees the motive behind your prayer.


I’ ve seen preachers with envy and strife in their hearts, they come into a place and just to be courteous you call on them to pray and they can’t pray anything but bless the dear pastor here,

when if they had you out in the alley they’d ring your neck!

He hasn’t got any use for you but he will pray Lord bless him.

How come?

Well he has to.

Look at all the people that he would lose influence in front of if he prayed out loud how he really felt and thought!

But God sees the heart!

And the motive!

He not only knows what we are praying He knows why we are praying!

How much of the praying today that go’s on, truthfully, honestly and truthfully speaking is not for the betterment of the lost souls but to make the environment a little better for us.

Come on, watch your praying!

There’s a vast difference between praying to consume it on your own lusts and praying for the Glory of God!

You go back to the 6th chapter of Matthew in your mind, when Jesus taught those disciples to pray and every verse is a petition as I taught you last week.

And that last verse even though many of those petitions have been fulfilled, His Kingdom has come with power it came with power on the day of Pentecost, that verse has been fulfilled but the last verse is never fulfilled!

What is it?

Thine be the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory Forever!

People, you never pray right unless you pray for the furtherance of God’s Kingdom.

Nothing furthered for you, but the furtherance of God’s Kingdom!

Matthew 6: 33 when you pray, seek first!

The Kingdom of God and all His righteousness then I’ll add these other things unto you!

We never pray right unless we pray according to the furtherance of God’s Kingdom for the Glory of God’s Power and not ours!
Let me tell you, it becomes a different thing when we begin praying for the Glory of God!

You read right on down thru James let’s read the 3rd verse again James 4:3
3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

Oh I could go on and preach and preach on asking on asking amiss, there’s plenty of people praying.

Well somebody might say how do you know that we are asking amiss, you don’t know us?

No your right I don’t know what you say when you pray but I would see the results if you were not asking amiss!

We all have to face those fact’s!

God’s not there!

I have preached to you from the 65th Psalm that He’s the one that is the confidence of all the earth and He is the God that hears our prayers! Psalm 65:2

Someone says, how do you know that our prayers aren’t getting thru?

The evidence would be multitudes of answers, answers, answers!

I want to repeat, we can very easily slip down from that spiritual level and just as I set two men before you, David sinned and he knew it!

Solomon, compromised little by little and wist not that the spirit of the Lord had left him, you can do the same!

You can get down to a natural level, go thru the form of prayer but not really expect to get anything.

When God’s answer to prayer, is giving you what you ask for!

You come on in verse 4, this is how James in his epistle addressed such people, James 4:3-4
3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses,

( he wasn’t talking about somebody that had been out with somebody else’s wife,

You commit adultery by friendship with the world,

What do you mean friendship with the world?

Coming down to the worlds level,

God’s Kingdom is not of this world, but you have got right down to worldly level,

Your living like the world does, your seeking help like the world does, your working out your problems like the world does

Instead of seeking God’s face to bring it about!

Aman!

Oh dear ones, God will not answer, let’s get it this morning when your heart is not right, when you ask amiss and the purpose is not right!

Your asking is in the matter of form, when you ask amiss and if your heart is not right then your asking is entirely for you and your good!

Not for God’s glory and the furtherance of God’s Kingdom!

When one prays such as that!

This is why God would so use words such as that!

This is why He would inspire James to use such words as he did in these verses!)

Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?

Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

When one prays amiss like this he asks God to be his servant and gratify his desires.

Come on, I want you to get it right there in that 3rd verse you are actually asking God to become your servant and gratify your desires!

Worse, that person wants God to join them in the joy of their lusts, helping them to get their lusts fulfilled.

I want you to see that such prayer is blasphemous, in the sight of God!

We pray amiss this morning when our aims are not right in prayer!

We must not pray with a selfish aim but with a serious and actual design to God’s Glory!

We could turn to many places where people right in the bible prayed amiss!

Let me give you at least one, Luke the 12th chapter.
Next week the Lord willing we are going to be dealing in how we actually find the will of God so we can defiantly know were praying according to the Will of God!

And James said that when we know that we are asking according to the will of God, we know that God hears us 1st John the 5th chapter.

And the second thing we know that if He hears us we have the very thing that we are asking for!

Luke 12:11-15 Here is a fellow that prayed amiss!
This will show you how much people pay attention to good sound teaching, because their minds is on something else!
Now there was a crowd here listing to Jesus teach and He was teaching His disciples something that is good for us!

11 And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say:

12 For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say.

Now this fellow was standing right there and when Jesus gave them a lesson on what a blessing it was going to be to have a Holy Ghost to be a present help to teach you what to say,

13 And one of the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me.

There’s a prayer amiss if I ever heard one, how come?

He wanted to consume on his own lusts.

Jesus you got power I can see that you have got authority, well my brother has got all my fathers inheritance, go and make him give half of it to me.

Might be that you have prayed that way.

Well someone might say well how does Jesus answer a prayer like that?

14 And he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?

15 And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

There is a prayer amiss!

Oh dear ones let me leave this thought with you this morning,

We can easily pray amiss, when were merely guided by our own desires and own thoughts!

If God did answer many of our prayers, we would have to pray quickly again, to get Him to move again for us!

Why?

Friend unless were Spiritual, we will be praying according to our own thoughts and our own desires.

And I say many times that God don’t even hear the prayer let alone answer it and it’s a blessing that He don’t.

Because if He did answer some prayers, we would turning right around and praying real fast that He would move again because we would see that we had done the wrong thing!

Friends, this morning as we close I want you to hold to the fact that God will answer every prayer that He hears!

I just pray that you will get you life and your heart into a condition that God will hear and answer your prayers.

There is a lot of praying that needs to be done and we need to make sure that we are doing it right!
 

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