Here is a question that many people with a right undertanding of the sovereignty of God like to ask: If God chooses some to be saved and hardens others so that they will not be saved, why should we pray?

 

S.D. Gordon, in a book on prayer, says:

Everything that has ever been prayed for, of course I mean every right thing, God has already purposed to do.  But He does nothing without consent.  He has been hindered in His purpose by our lack of willingness.  When we learn His purposes and make them our prayers, we are giving Him an opportunity to act. 

He also says:

There are people…in that lower, lost world…who are there…because someone failed to put his life in touch with God, and pray.

Gordon assumes that God has limited Himself so that He is dependent of the will of men to bring things to pass – at least certain things.

 

This idea is acceptable to many because they feel as though their prayers are very useful.  They feel as though they can accomplish much in their prayers.  However, such reasong should not be the basis for doctrine.  We are not to determine what is right and wrong based on our own ideas and reasoning. 

 

Gordon’s conclusion is wrong.  It is contrary to Scripture.  The Bible does not limit God to the prayers of men. 

 

So, how does prayer and the sovereignty of God relate?  Here are 7 truths from Scripture that help us to understand God's sovereignty and our prayers in a way that honors God.

 

1. God is sovereign.  He does whatever He wants, and He is not limited in anyway. 

Psalm 115:3
3But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.

God does what He pleases.  He is not bound by the prayers of any man.  Prayer demonstrates the authority of God.  It is not supposed to demonstrate the authority of man!

Daniel 4:35
35“All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He does according to His will in the host of heaven And among the inhabitants of earth; And no one can ward off His hand Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’

 

Psalm 145:13
13Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, And Your dominion endures throughout all generations.

God rules over all.  His kingdom is not subject the prayers of men.  Men do not rule the kingdom by means of prayers.  God alone rules.  In fact, His universal kingdom extends over all – even the most minute circumstances.

Proverbs 16:33
33The lot is cast into the lap, But its every decision is from the Lord.

Finally, notice that God’s kingdom has been planned out before time. 

2 Kings 19:25
25‘Have you not heard? Long ago I did it; From ancient times I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass, That you should turn fortified cities into ruinous heaps.

Everything that happens has been ordained before time.  There is no man that is born in 1952 who prays for his mom to be saved and by so doing changes the ancient plans of God.  If the man’s mom attains salvation, it was planned before time.

 

2. God commands you to pray.

 

I will show you only two passages for now since the truth, I’m sure, is familiar to you.

Luke 18:1
1Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart,

 

1 Thessalonians 5:17
17pray without ceasing;

3. You should not consider your earnest prayers to be incompatible with the sovereignty of God.

 

I will show you two men in the Bible who demonstrate that earnest prayers are appropriate even with a clear understanding of the eternal, sovereign plan of God.

 

Paul

We have been studying Romans 9.  In 9.16 Paul makes it very clear that a man’s salvation does not depend on a man who runs or wills.  God is sovereign in man’s salvation.  He is completely sovereign.  His choice to save a man is in no way conditioned upon a man’s willing or running.  It cannot be so since God is righteous.   He is righteous in that He faithfully demonstrates His own great glory by remaining the soul Source, Accomplisher, and Benefactor of every man’s salvation.  We have seen this in the past so I will not take the time to explain it again here.

 

You might wonder whether Paul would pray earnestly for the salvation of men if God had already chosen some to be saved and some to be hardened before time.  He does pray for their salvation.

Romans 10:1
1Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.

Isaiah, the prophet

Isaiah tells of Hezekiah.  Hezekiah prayed to the Lord in the face of certain death.

Isaiah 38:1-6
1In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.’ ” 2Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, 3and said, “Remember now, O Lord, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. 4Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, saying, 5“Go and say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of your father David, “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will add fifteen years to your life. 6“I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city.” ’

Not too long after Isaiah relates this account to us, he tells us of the sovereignty of God.  Isaiah carefully explains the eternal, sovereign plan of God in chapter 46 of his book.

Isaiah 46:9-11
9“Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, 10Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’; 11Calling a bird of prey from the east, The man of My purpose from a far country. Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do it.

Isaiah is sure that no one will be able to move God to change His plans.  God says, “I have planned it, surely I will do it.”  He does not say, “I have planned it, surely I will do it, unless someone prays really, really hard so that I have to change it.”  Such an idea is ridiculous.

 

These two men still saw the importance of and necessity to pray even though God was completely sovereign.  It is necessary to pray even though God has ordained the beginning and the end.

 

4. You are not to think of your prayers as changing a changeless God. 

 

God does not change His mind when people pray.  You may find this hard to believe given passages like the one we will look at right now.  You will remember that the children made for themselves a golden calf to worship while Moses was on Mount Sinai getting the Ten Commandments.  God’s response the men of Israel is frightening.

Exodus 32:9-14
9The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people. 10“Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation.” 11Then Moses entreated the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12“Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, ‘With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people. 13“Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” 14So the Lord changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.

After reading this passage you may think it is abundantly clear that God does sometimes change His mind in response to prayers.  But, how do you reconcile this with God’s eternal plans which are “ancient?”  I would suggest to you that God is not actually changing His plans (or His mind) in this passage.  Let me explain.

 

These are anthropopathisms (ascribing human emotions to God).  They are similar to anthropomorphisms (ascribing human form, or parts, to God), which speak of God having the form of man such as a hand, mouth, heart, etc.  Look at some of these passages where Isaiah speaks of God as having human parts.

Isaiah 40:2
2“Speak kindly to Jerusalem; And call out to her, that her warfare has ended, That her iniquity has been removed, That she has received of the Lord’s hand Double for all her sins.”

 

Isaiah 40:5
5Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, And all flesh will see it together; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

 

Isaiah 40:7
7The grass withers, the flower fades, When the breath of the Lord blows upon it; Surely the people are grass.

 

Isaiah 40:10-11
10Behold, the Lord God will come with might, With His arm ruling for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him And His recompense before Him. 11Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, In His arm He will gather the lambs And carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes.

These verses speak of God as having the form of men, but we know He does not.  The Scriptures clearly say that God is spirit.

John 4:24
24“God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Why does Isaiah speak of God as having these parts even though He actually does not?  Isaiah is using a figure of speech (an anthropomorphism).  We sometimes do this when we speak too.  We may speak of the mouth of a plane, or we may say, “my TV breathed her last yesterday.  She gave up the ghost.”  We don’t gasp when we hear this.  We know with certainty that planes are not animals.  We know with certainty TV have not ghost to “give up” and no lungs to “breathe.” 

 

Well, when it comes to God and His essence, we are clear that on some things.

Numbers 23:19
19“God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

 

1 Samuel 15:29
29“Also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind.”

One characteristic of God which distinguishes Him from man is the fact that He does not change.  He does not change His mind.  He does not make a mistake.  He does everything perfect the first time.  He cannot improve on His original plan.  His first plan is perfect, and He can therefore never change it.

 

So, what is the point of Exodus 32?  Well, (1) God is demonstrating His wrath towards the sinfulness of Israel; (2) God “changed His mind” in the sense that He is now taking some action that is different from what was suggested as a previous possibility; (3) God, through this account, is teaching us the importance of properly appealing to God on the basis of His promises; lastly, (4) God’s purposes were not changed because of Moses’ prayer – on the contrary, God’s purposes were carried out by means of the prayer of Moses.

 

To help you be even more convinced of this, take another look at verse 10.  In this verse, God suggests the possibility that the Messiah would come through the line of Moses!  Would God destroy Israel and do this? Notice that God had previously prophesied that this could never be so.  In this passage Jacob, the Patriarch, prophesies that the Messiah will come through the line of Judah.

Genesis 49:10
10“The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes, And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

Moses was not from the line of Judah, but Levi (Exodus 2.1-9).

So, although the possibility is suggested that God would destroy every last Israelite and have the Messiah come through the line of Moses, we know that God had previously prophesied that this would not happen.  We safely conclude Moses employed a figure of speech in this passage.

 

So, you may be wondering why you should pray since God does not actually answer any prayer because everything is already ordained before time.  Let’s hurry on to the next point.

 

5. God does answer prayer, and He can only because He is sovereign.

 

Actually, I won’t list a lot of passages here because you, I’m sure, are very familiar with such promises.

James 5:16
16Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.

 

1 John 5:14-15
14This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.

God does answer prayer.  He does hear us.  You may not understand how it works, but don’t let that be an excuse for neglecting to obey God by praying.  Also, don’t let your lack of understanding keep you from worshipping God by trusting in His promises.  Trust His Word even when you can’t wrap your puny mind around it.

 

Then again, I don’t want you to assume you are not to understand more about this issue.  So, there are more points.

 

6. Understand that your prayers and God’s answers to your prayers are part of His eternal plan.

 

All our actions are part of His plan, but that does not keep us from doing anything.  You know that in the taking of a test at school, it is God Who determines your score, right?  You know it is God Who determines whether you will remember what you studied, right?  You know that your remembrance and your score were both determined (or, decreed) before time, right?  So, do you say, “Why study?  God has determined the outcome already?”

 

We know that “it is inconsistent with common sense to make the secret decrees of God a guide to us in our general conduct.”[1]  We should reason the same way when it comes to prayer. 

 

If we say, “why pray since the thing prayed for is predetermined?” We neglect to remember that not only is the thing prayed for predetermined but so is the prayer. 

 

This leads us to our final point.

 

7. Pray earnestly to God according to His moral will knowing that your prayers and His answers will be the means by which God is glorified.

 

God will be glorified by all men.  Some men glorify God passively by rejecting God thereby becoming demonstrations of His holy wrath and power.  Other men glorify God actively by the glad submission to His commands – including the command to pray.

 

One man said, “You will certainly carry out God’s purpose however you act [whether you pray or not], but it makes a difference to you whether you serve like Judas or like John.”[2]

 

Your prayers will be God’s means to bring about His plan.  Effectual prayer is an ordained means that God uses to accomplish His ordained purposes.  John Calvin said, “Prayer is digging up the treasures that God has already prepared for us.”[3]  Start digging!  You will find treasure!

 

“The Christian is not to ask whether this or that event happened because of prayer…There is no question whether an event has happened because of your prayer.  When the event you prayed for occurs your [biblical] prayer has always contributed to it.  When the opposite event occurs your prayer has never been ignored; it has been considered and refused, for your ultimate good and the good of the whole universe.”[4]

---

[1] Spurgeon said this.  See http://www.sovereign-grace.com/286.htm.

 

 

[2] This is a quote from an article called “The Sovereignty of God and Prayer by John Piper at http://monergism.com.

 

 

[3] This is quoted by Reissinger at http://www.solochristo.com/theology/Salvation/sogip/

sogipmain.htm.

 

 

[4] C.S. Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study, p. 187.