transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Have you ever wondered why God says no? If you have, stay with us. Welcome. As we look once again into the life and message of Elisabeth Elliot, she called us to live to a higher standard each day, and not settle for second best. We'll hear from family, friends, and others, all influenced by the life and message of Elisabeth Elliot. Hey, thank you for joining us. Well, we have two Gateway to Joy programs for you today, including Why God Says No. It's The Prayer of Faith, parts 3 and 4. We'll be looking at this subject of prayer for a few weeks more, and we invite you to stay with us for this week and the next two. So we continue thinking about prayer. We'll be hearing from Elisabeth as she answers the question, Why is it called Gateway to Joy anyway? And her friend Kathy Gilbert shares about a man with insomnia. Maybe you're praying for someone with a very practical need, like not being able to get the rest that's needed. Stay with us as we think about prayer. Brian Jeffrey Leach wrote a song, When God Says No to You. It's such a blow to you when all your hopes and dreams unravel at the seam. When God says wait to you and God seems late to you. It's hard to rest within his will. It's hard to trust and just be still. It's hard to simply wait until it's all made plain. He who holds us in his hands has no problems, only plans. He who has control of all sees the smallest sparrow fall. He who works where no one knows does not sleep as we suppose, but works in all things, both great and small things, for his own glory and our best good. When God works silently in ways we cannot see, when troubles multiply so that we ache inside, when God does not seem kind and hope is hard to find, it's hard to rest within his will, it's hard to trust and just be still, it's hard to simply wait until it's all made plain. When God says no to you, you are loved with an everlasting love.

Speaker 2:
[02:47] That's what the Bible says, and underneath are the everlasting arms. This is your friend, Elisabeth Elliot, talking with you today about why God says no. We've been talking about the subject of prayer, and usually one of the very first questions that comes up is, why doesn't it work? When we say that it didn't work, we usually mean that it didn't work the way I wanted it to. We imagine that God is not listening. The truth is, it did work. God is listening, and God says no for some very good reasons, three of which I gave in my last talk. Number one, because he has other people in mind for whom he wants to do something, for the sake of others, in other words. Number two, for your own sake. He loves you too much to give you scorpions when you're asking for eggs, or stones when you're asking for bread. And third, for his own glory. And that's a matter that touches on deep mysteries that you and I know very little about. A fourth reason why God says no, is that he has something better. Not very long ago, my daughter and her husband were looking for a house in California. Well, I would hate to be looking for a house anywhere in this country, but one of the most expensive areas, I suppose, is Southern California. They live in Orange County, where my son-in-law has a church, a little place called Laguna Niguel. And they were looking for a house that would be big enough for eight people. Valerie is the mother of six children. They had what they thought was the perfect place. They called us up to tell us about it. They had just been over to see it. And Valerie was very excited. It has a view, it has a nice yard, it has a nice big family room, etcetera, etcetera. And then a couple of days later, Valerie called back to say, the house has been sold to somebody else. Somebody made a better offer. There was great disappointment. She was disappointed, Walt was disappointed, we were disappointed. And we thought, oh dear, back to square one, now what? Well, do I need to tell you that the house that they finally found and moved into is better than the one that they were disappointed about? And I thought back to when Valerie was about 12 years old. She fell head over heels, she thought, in love with a boy named Charlie. Charlie was this and Charlie was that, and Charlie was wonderful, and oh dear, where's Charlie and how come Charlie hasn't called? And I wonder if Charlie will be there tonight. And finally, Charlie just sort of let her know in various ways that he wasn't particularly interested. I can still see Val standing in the bathroom, putting curlers in her hair with tears pouring down her cheeks. I said, what's the matter, sweetheart? Charlie, it's Charlie, she said. And of course, in her imagination, there could never be anybody else as wonderful as Charlie. But when she looks at Walt now, she knows that Walt has a good many things that Charlie didn't have. I remember my own disappointment, just a small disappointment, not a huge one, but it was a very real one, even so, that my first child was a little girl. Not that I didn't want a baby girl, I wanted a large family. But I thought it was nice for children to have a big brother. I grew up in a family where I was the second child and I had a big brother. I thought when we started our family that it would be nice if the first child was a son. I think every man desires a son, and so that was my hope. When the doctor said, it's a girl, there was a sense of disappointment. How many times I've thanked God for that girl, because she's my only child. And I've thought how much more difficult it might have been to have reared a son without a father. Valerie's father died when she was 10 months old. So I've been very grateful that my only child is a girl. Remember Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane. If all other arguments fail to convince you that God sometimes says no even to good people, even to people who have faith, remember that Jesus prayed, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt. And God's answer was no. Not because Jesus was not pure enough, not because his motives were mixed, not because his faith failed, not because of any inadequacies or unspirituality in him, certainly. But God said no for the sake of the world, for his own glory, and ultimately for Jesus' own exaltation. In Philippians, the second chapter, verses 6 to 13, we read this. For the divine nature was his from the first, yet he did not think to snatch at equality with God, but made himself nothing assuming the nature of a slave. Bearing the human likeness, revealed in human shape, he humbled himself, and in obedience accepted even death, death on a cross. Therefore, God raised him to the heights, and bestowed on him the name above all names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven, on earth, and in the depths, and every tongue confess, Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. So you too, my friends, must be obedient as always, even more now that I am away than when I was with you. You must work out your own salvation in fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, inspiring both the will and the deed for His own chosen purpose. Now that passage mentions obedience twice, the obedience of Jesus Christ, and the obedience that you and I must perform in order to follow Him. And obedience led to Christ's exaltation, and it will lead to our salvation, and the fulfillment of God's chosen purpose. Often the answer God does give to us doesn't appear to be better than the one we asked for. Often it appears to be quite the contrary. Have you had that experience? I'm sure you have. But our purposes are so often selfish and temporal, and God's purposes are always loving and eternal. I think, for example, of my prayers for the safety of my husband Jim when he went into savage Indian territory. Lord, please protect him. Bring him back safely to Valerie and me. You know the end of the story. Jim died. But God had a good many things much more important in mind than I had. My own motives were, of course, partly selfish. They certainly were temporal. I knew that Gods were loving and eternal, but it was hard to take. Let's remember that some things are impossible with God in the ultimate working out of his grand and glorious purposes. Be sure you understand what I'm saying here. The Bible does say nothing is impossible, and yet the Bible also proves to us that in the grand and glorious working out of his purposes, there are some things which are impossible. As Jesus' prayer shows, if it be possible, let this cup pass. In order for you and me to be saved, God had to say no to the cup passing. Some things simply won't fit the grand and glorious pattern of his purposes. A fifth reason why God says no, because we're harboring sin sometimes. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the psalmist says, the Lord will not hear me. Then according to John 15, we have to be dwelling or abiding or living in Christ, and when we're living that way, then we can ask what we will. But there are times when we are definitely not living in Christ. We are not living in harmony with his will. And so that's the reason sometimes why God has to say no. And then sixth are reasons that we can't and we don't need to know. We're in the dark about a lot of things, let's face it. We're not the ones commanding the winds and managing the storehouses of the snow or steering the stars. Think of air traffic controllers, for example. If they gave permission to land to every plane that wanted permission to land now, can you imagine the chaos? They sit there in their tower with an immensely complex screen in front of them. And yet, by comparison with what God is engineering and controlling, that screen is as simple as a jigsaw puzzle. We in the airport are fuming and stewing because of delays, assuming it's all bad management. Very often we're mistaken. It may be weather. It may be reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with poor equipment or bad management or failure up in the tower. Reasons that we can't know. Maybe there's a bomb in a suitcase, and so the plane has to be held up while that suitcase is unloaded or inspected. These are all simple illustrations of the fact that when we pray, we are coming to one who is in charge, the blessed controller of all things. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Has he done that for you? Maybe it doesn't look like it, but years later you find that it is in fact exactly what he has done. I can testify that he has given me the deepest desires of my heart, but the deepest waters that I have had to go through have taught me the deepest lessons.

Speaker 1:
[14:06] The Prayer of Faith, Part 3, Why God Says No. You know, here at Our Time Together, we typically have two Gateway to Joy programs. We'll have another on The Prayer of Faith in a little bit. But have you ever wondered why it was even called Gateway to Joy?

Speaker 2:
[14:25] It's because I believe with all my heart, ladies and gentlemen, and children, that absolutely everything, if offered to Jesus, every experience, every aspect of our lives, if offered to Jesus, can be a Gateway to Joy. And some of the most joyful people I've ever known have been people who did very, very humble, unnoticed kind of work. They did it as an offering to Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1:
[14:59] Gateway to Joy, program four in the series The Prayer of Faith, coming next. And it is simply called The Prayer of Faith. James 1 says, If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering, for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with a wind and tossed. For let not that man think he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

Speaker 2:
[15:40] I once heard one of those TV evangelists promise that if people would send him $10, that God would multiply it four fold. Well, I thought about that. I pondered that, and I thought, now, where does he find that in the Bible? We are told that the seed can multiply 30 fold, 60 fold, and even 100 fold. That's a whole lot more than four fold, isn't it? And I believe that God can do that. Very likely, God has done it many times. When someone has given $10, then God has given them more than they had given away. I don't doubt that for a moment. But to make a blanket statement for the masses, send me $10 and God will give you $40, which obviously must be what he meant. God will multiply it four fold. That seems to me a bit stretching it. And we were talking about this with a friend of ours in Texas. And he said, well, you know what I'm going to do? He said, I'm going to send that guy a letter and say, look, you're the guy that needs the money. I don't need the money. So you send me your $10. And God will multiply it four fold to you. In other words, he was going to call that man's bluff. If that man really believed that principle, then why shouldn't he be sending out $10 bills to all his listeners? He'd be getting back 40 for everyone he sent out. That's a pretty good return, isn't it? Well, what exactly is this faith, which is supposed to get us the miracle we need? I put quotations around that word faith and also quotations around that word need because they're words that are carelessly used. Maybe you know me well enough by this time to know that words are my tools. I'm a wordsmith and it bothers me when people misuse tools. And to use that word faith in so careless a way and to use the word need without careful consideration, well, it makes me a little bit edgy. When I hear a television evangelist get up there and say, what you need is a miracle, I want to say, well, if what I need is a miracle, then can't I trust God to give me that miracle? But it's not really up to me to decide whether that's what I need. There are a lot of situations where I know that it would have to be a miracle to get me out of it, but God doesn't necessarily want to get me out of it. God might want to teach me some very deep lessons in it. This question of the prayer of faith and the mysteries involved in our not receiving exactly what we asked for is far too deep for me, and I've studied the scriptures on it. I've studied a good many books on prayer. I don't know a more down-to-earth practical and helpful book than CS. Lewis's Letters to Malcolm. In that book, he says this, The state of mind which desperate desire, working on a strong imagination can manufacture, is not faith in the Christian sense. It is a feat of psychological gymnastics. I'll read that again. This is from CS. Lewis's book, Letters to Malcolm. The state of mind which desperate desire, working on a strong imagination can manufacture, is not faith in the Christian sense. It is a feat of psychological gymnastics. I think when we try to work up, drum up or scare up something called faith, which in some mysterious way is going to act like magic and get us what we want, that is nothing more than psychological gymnastics. We do those when we have a very desperate desire about something. Then there's that verse in Mark 11, 24 that seems unequivocal. Jesus says, Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Do you understand that? Well, I've never understood it because it simply doesn't happen that way every time, does it? Believing that you have received it, that's something that a friend of mine tried to do. She happens to be blind, and so she prayed on the basis of this verse, that God would give her her sight back, and then she tried to believe that she had received her sight. The fact was she still had to go around with her white cane, and I said, you did ask for your sight in prayer? Yes, she said. And I said, you did believe that you had received it? And she said, yes. And I said, can you see me? And she said, no. And I said, can you explain that for me? And she said, yes. She said, I have received my sight back, but it is not yet manifested. Well, there again, we're doing psychological gymnastics. We're doing semantic gymnastics as well, and I really am standing on my head and spinning backwards when somebody uses that sort of thing for reasoning. And yet, Jesus said that. How do we understand it? Well, back to my spiritual mentor, CS. Lewis, one of the great minds and explainers of the 20th century. He said, he believes that that verse is for very advanced pupils. And he leaves it with that. He says, it's a coping stone, not a foundation. Well, I had to go and look up, coping stone. You architects and builders would know without looking it up, but it's that sloping stone that is used sometimes on the top of a wall to shed the water so that it doesn't go down into the mortar. But it's not a foundation. It requires, Lewis says, a degree or kind of faith which most of us never experience. The Lord in His mercy accepts a far inferior degree, it seems. Remember that the words, help thou mine unbelief, opened the way for a miracle. That was a tremendously helpful thought to me. When the man prayed, help thou mine unbelief, that acknowledgement of his own very limited faith was sufficient to open the way for a miracle. A far inferior faith than the kind that can ask anything that it wants in prayer and will receive it. And yet God accepts even that measure of faith. It comforts me to know that God meets me where I am. He's my father. He knows my frame. He remembers that I'm dust. He knows the measure of my faith. And very often I think God answers the prayers of children and of brand new believers in a much more literal and immediate way than he may answer the prayers of some more seasoned saint. Huckleberry Finn, you may remember, tried that verse of asking anything he wanted and believing that he received it and it would be his. And it didn't work, and so he gave up Christianity forever. Am I talking to anyone out there who has done the same thing? You say, well, I prayed, I tried everything. None of it worked, so I threw in the sponge. Jesus had no assurance in Gethsemane that his prayer, if it be possible, let this cup pass, was to be removed. He had no assurance that that prayer would be answered. His prayer should be ours. Thy will be done. That, remember, was the bottom line of Jesus' desperate prayers, which brought on crying and tears and sweat, as it were, great drops of blood. The bottom line was, nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. The scripture says that we can make our requests, but let us not forget that they are requests. They're not claims. They're not demands. They're not rights. We come as children to a father. Please, daddy, buy me an ice cream cone. The answer is yes the first time. Please, daddy, can I have another ice cream cone? The answer is no. Please, daddy, help me tie my shoes. The answer is certainly almost always yes in a case like that. So let's never hesitate to bring our needs and our wants, but let's learn as we grow to know him and learn his everlasting love, to transfer our wills to his. Prayer is an absolute transfer of my will to God's, as I am a cooperator with him in his work, so I lay my will alongside his, that it may work in harmony and not in contradiction. Sometimes the request for the ice cream cone is in harmony with the father's will. It's exactly what the father wants to do for the child when he takes him for that Saturday afternoon trip to the zoo. But if it's right before supper and they're on their way home, the answer is going to be no. He is cooperating. The child has to learn that the father's will is for the best. The ice cream is not a need, so it may or may not have anything to do with the father's idea of the best. The second, please help me tie my shoe, is cooperation with exactly the purpose that the father has in mind, the child's growing up and learning independence. And when our prayers are exactly in accord with what our heavenly father has in mind, we can be assured that the answer will be yes. But when the answer is no, let's never insist that God wasn't listening, that God doesn't hear our prayers, that it's because we didn't have enough faith. It's because we didn't ask the right thing in the right way, at the right time or with the right fervency or with the right religious feelings. All these things are Satan's means of trying to make us quit praying. Because as someone has said, Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees.

Speaker 1:
[26:51] The Prayer of Faith, Part 4, wrapping up our short series. We'll be thinking about wrestling in prayer coming up next week. Right now, let's hear from Kathy Gilbert. When you pray, do you pray for others with very practical needs? For instance, somebody who has insomnia, that person needs prayer, doesn't he?

Speaker 3:
[27:15] I had the incredible privilege of being part of a small retreat at the Billy Graham Center's Cove Conference Center in North Carolina. And it was in April of 2002. And as I sat with Elisabeth in the Cove lobby, and it was a Wednesday night, so it was April 24th, 2002, the Cove hostess, Jane Derrick, came up to Elisabeth and said, two years ago, when you were teaching at the Cove during the Q&A time, a man suffering from insomnia for two years, who hadn't slept in three weeks, asked, what do you do with suffering? And you, Elisabeth, answered, I put the suffering in my hands. And as I offer it to the Lord, I say, Lord, you know, I can't handle this. So I hand it over to you and I will not take it back. The next day, as a man who suffered from insomnia was walking on the trail to the chapel, he stopped, knelt in the woods and said, Lord, I offer up this sleeplessness to you. Your will be done. And when he returned to the main lodge and he sat on the back deck, looking over at the Blue Ridge Mountains, he fell asleep. And through the Elisabeth's next session, he slept. And then he slept through the night. He was healed. Jane Derrick uses his story as she teaches at retreats, and the Lord keeps using it over and over. And he uses it with me to this day.

Speaker 1:
[28:54] A friend of Elisabeth, that was Kathy Gilbert. She left that message on elisabethalliot.org, and we invite you to go and check out all that's there. Gateway to Joy Programs, Devotionals Videos, and other resources. Well, thanks for letting us come along with you. As you were at home, at the office, maybe taking a walk through the park, wherever we found you today. On behalf of The Elizabeth Elliot Foundation, in cooperation with the Bible Broadcasting Network, thank you for being a part of our time together. And if you'd like to leave a message, as Kathy did earlier, you can find out more in the show notes for our podcast today. Well, until next time, may God remind you daily, you are loved with an everlasting love. What's underneath? That's right. And underneath are the everlasting arms.