If any of us here has no light, no clear understanding of the things of God; if any of us here has no God, no knowledge of God, no walk with God; if any of us here has no answer to prayer, no help from God at all, then the reason is simple. According to this passage, it is that we have never asked, it's as simple as that. According to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, there is only one possible explanation why we have no help, no experience of God, no answer to prayer: simply and plainly, we have never asked. Now that seems extraordinary, because it is doubtful whether there is a single person who hasn't prayed. There may be some who are not regular worshippers and would be the last to describe themselves as committed Christian people, and yet at some time they will have prayed. It may have been a long time ago, it doesn't matter; it may have been recently; it may be that you pray often, and yet you would not describe yourself as a Christian. So how can this be true? If everybody prays, somehow, at some time, and yet most people cannot say they know the Lord, and have received his help and his pardon, what is the explanation? Because the Lord Jesus Christ says absolutely categorically, that if we ask, we shall receive it; if we seek it, we shall find it; and if we apply at the door of heaven for all this help and blessing, the door most certainly will be opened to us. The explanation is sometimes hard for us to take, but here it is. It is that, if we have prayed in some way without ever having had an experience of God and become truly related to him, it is because we have not asked genuinely, or we have asked for the wrong things. Anybody who asks in a real, meaningful spirit will receive. We have been like those little children, who go rushing round the doors, and they ring the bells and bang the knockers and then run away. They are not exactly seeking admission. They are just having a game, they want to peep round the corner house and see how many of the doors open and so on, before they move on, sharpish. But they are not actually interested in talking to anybody, or getting in. In some ways our prayers are no better than that. It is possible for people to pray with no serious intention of wanting an answer, or to pray for quite the wrong things.
What goes wrong in our seek the Lord? For some, there is no prayer at all. If there is no prayer, you cannot possibly be a Christian. If we have no prayer which is answered and which brings us into a relationship with God, then we are like a kind of a dumb instrument, an inanimate object. There is no life in us. We have no resources beyond the merely human, and we know how limited they are. We have no power, no strength, we have no friend in heaven.
What makes prayer real? What is it that makes all the difference between the prayer that goes wrong and the prayer which is answered? Do you have to be very accomplished in prayer, very able in expressing things? Do you have to know a lot about spiritual or religious things in order to pray aright? No, nothing like that. You can come as a complete outsider, and you can be very poor at expressing yourself, and yet you can pray a prayer which is going to be immediately heard on high. So what makes the difference? The first thing that really matters, according to the word of God, is sincerity. You must be sincere. Now you may say, surely, nobody would waste their time praying insincerely, but people do. We have illustrations of this in the word of God, such as in Luke 18, the Parable of the Pharisees and the Publican. The Pharisees just stood and ‘prayed thus with himself.’ Some people like to imagine their lives are very pleasing to God, they don't really know God, but they are puffed up and proud of themselves. They will close their eyes and pray, and affect to praise and thank God, or to ask for this that and the other, but it's all worthless. Some of us have done this, and we've barely realised we were doing it. True prayer is not just a kind of psychological self-administered relief. Prayer is a real conversation with God and it's genuine. You are really speaking to God; you are asking him things.
If we feel we have asked and not received an answer from God, what have we prayed for? I read a biography of a great 19th century scientist who admitted quite candidly that the only time he ever prayed was when he had money problems. There is something of this in all of us. Another man, an eminent scientist who became an outright humanist, in remembering his childhood, said he only ever prayed when he very badly wanted to win something. Other people will admit they pray when they are in a tight corner. I remember somebody who came to some meetings, and he admitted he was only really seeking help and praying, because he was facing a court martial. Why do these prayers not get us anywhere? Because the Lord that as soon as everything is alright, we will go back to living our sinful life and forget all about him. Is it surprising that the Lord doesn't hear our prayers? A lot of prayer is not heard because it's asking for the wrong things.
What are the right things? Supposing you desperately need an urgent operation. You go to the hospital, and get all your tests and then you are seen by the surgeon. You're told it's a matter of life and death, and you've got to have this operation. What are you going to discuss with the surgeon? You are not going to go over your holiday plans for next year, or the problems that your business is facing? Neither do you go to God in order to discuss the things that least matter. God is the great surgeon on high, the great physician. My need is a need of the soul. I’m a dying soul. I'm a sinner. I'm going to hell. I need salvation. Even my life in this world is a complete waste of time, because I'm living as a worldling. I'm not serving him. I don't know him. My great need is for pardon and forgiveness and spiritual life. The reason why so much prayer doesn't get heard is you're discussing the wrong things with the Lord God. You're discussing some little problem that's bothering you, and if only you could get it out of the way, then you can go back to living as you have always lived, when what you should be discussing is the great operation on the heart which you need. My need of conversion, my need of cleansing, my need of a new life, my need of knowing God. These are the things which I need to be talking about in prayer.
Thinks of the Apostle Paul. He was born into a religious tradition, was born a Jew, and trained up. He was a brilliant young man, trained for work and high office among the Jews of his day, a man who was destined for office, both political and religious, among the Jews. And yet he had gone some way down life's pathway before it is said of him, ‘Behold, he prays.’ It didn't matter whether he went into the temple or into the synagogue every day. The first time he really prayed, genuinely, sincerely, feelingfully, asking for the right things was on the road to Damascus, when the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to him.
You have to understand how it is that you can pray at all. Your prayer can only be heard, because there is a mediator between God and man. God himself in the person of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, has come into this world in order to stand between God and man. Because that mediator, who is God himself, has borne the punishment of my sins and my guilt which stands against me and separates me from God; because he has done that I can pray to God. I wing my thoughts to the Lord Jesus. How do I know that they are heard? Because Christ has come down out of heaven, and he has permitted himself to be taken in weakness and nailed to a cross to bear away the sins of those whom he would hear.