And whatsoever we ask we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.
1 John 3:22
The impression that many people have is that all the promises in the Word of God in regard to His answering prayer are made to everyone, and that anyone can claim these promises; but this is far from the truth. God’s promises to answer prayer are made to certain specified persons, and God is very careful in His Word to tell us just who these persons are whose prayers He promises to answer. One of the most common sources of misinterpretation of the Word of God is the taking of promises that are made to one class of people and applying them to an entirely different class. Of course, when this is done, and people to whom the promises were never made claim them, disappointment is the inevitable result; they do not get what they ask and they think that God’s promise has failed. But God’s promise has not failed: someone has claimed the fulfillment of that promise who had no right to take the promise as belonging to himself. God tells us in the plainest possible words, words that any intelligent person can understand, just whose prayers it is He promises to answer.
One of the most definite and clearest descriptions to be found in the Bible of whose prayers God will answer, is found in 1 John 3:22. Let me read it to you: “And whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight.”
Have you ever noticed what a remarkable statement the apostle John makes in this verse? He says that whatever he asked of God he got, “Whatsoever we ask we receive of him.” John here says he never asked one single thing of God but what he got that very thing he asked. How many of us could say that: “Whatsoever I ask of God I get”? Many of us doubtless could say “Many of the things I ask of God I get.” Others could say “some of the things I ask of God I get”; and some of us would probably have to say, “I do not know that I have ever gotten one thing I asked of God.” But John says “Whatsoever I ask of God I get.” And then John goes on to tell us why he could say it, and by telling us why he could say it he tells us how we, too, can get into such a relation to God that we too can say, “whatsoever I ask I get.”
God Answers the Prayers of Those Who Keep His Commandments
Whenever you find the word “because” in the Bible, or “wherefore” or “therefore,” you should take careful notice for these words point out the reason of things. John here says that the reason God gave him whatever he asked was “because” he, and the others that he includes with himself in the word “we,” keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. There are two parts to John’s description of those whose prayers God always answers.
The first part of the description is, “We keep His commandments.” God hears the prayers of those who “keep His commandments,” that is, those who study His Word each day to find out what His will is, and who, when they discover what His will is, do it every time they find it. God demands reciprocity: He demands that we listen to His Word before He listens to our prayers. If we have a sharp ear for God’s commandments, then God will have a sharp ear for our petitions; but if we turn a deaf ear to one of God’s commandments, God will turn a deaf ear to every one of our petitions. If we do the things that God bids us to do, then God will do the things that we ask Him to do; but if we do not pay close attention to God’s Word, God will pay no attention whatever to our prayers. To put it all in a single sentence: If we wish God to answer our prayers, we must study God’s Word diligently each day, to find out what the will of God is, and do that will every time we find it.
Here we touch upon one of the most common reasons why prayers are not answered: those who pray are neglecting the study of the Word of God, or they are not studying it for the particular purpose of finding out what God’s will is for them, or else they are not doing that will every time they find it out. In my first pastorate there was a lady who was a constant attendant upon the services of the church, but who was not a member of the church. She was one of the most intelligent women in the community. One day someone told me that this lady had formerly been a member of the church of which I was pastor. So one Sunday morning, as I was walking home from church, I walked along with this lady, who lived on the same street as I. When we reached my front gate and I was about to turn in, I said to her, “They tell me you were formerly a member of this church of which I am pastor.”
She replied, “Yes, I was.”
“Well,” I said, “why are you not a member now?”
She answered, “Because I do not believe the Bible.”
I said, “Do not believe the Bible?”
“No,” she said, “I do not believe the Bible.”
I asked, “Why do you not believe the Bible?”
She replied, “Because I have tried its promises and found them untrue.”
I said, “Will you tell me one single promise in the Word of God that you ever tried and found untrue?”
She said, “Does it not say somewhere in the Bible that whatsoever things ye desire when ye pray, believe
that ye receive them and ye shall have them?”
I said, “It says something that sounds a good deal like that.”
She said, “My husband was very ill. I prayed for his recovery and I fully believed God would raise him up, but he died. Did not the promise fail?”
“No, not at all,” I said.
“What?” she exclaimed, “the promise did not fail?”
“No,” I replied, “the promise did not fail.”
“But,” she said, “does it not say that what things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them?”
I said, “It says something that sounds a good deal like that.”
“Just what does it say?”
I replied, “It says, ‘whatsoever things ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them.’ Are you one of the ‘Ye’s’?”
She asked, “What do you mean?”
I replied, “Are you one of the people to whom this promise is made?”
“Why,” she exclaimed, “isn’t it made to every professing Christian?”
I replied, “Certainly not. God defines very clearly in His Word just to whom His promises to answer prayer are made.”
“I would like to see God’s definition,” she said.
I said, “Let me show it to you,” and I opened my Bible to 1 John 3:22, and read, “Whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing to his sight.” Then I said, “That is God’s definition of the ‘we’s’ and the ‘ye’s’ whose prayers God promises to answer; those who ‘keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.’ Were you keeping His commandments? Were you doing the things that are pleasing in His sight? Were you living for the glory of God in everything?”
“No,” she said, “I certainly was not.”
“Then,” I said, “the promise was not made to you, was it?”
“No,” she said, “it was not.”
“Then it did not fail?”
“No, it did not.” She saw her error and came back to God and became one of the most active and most useful members of that church.
There are a multitude of men and women just like that woman: they take a promise that is made to someone else and apply it to themselves, and of course it fails. Are you one of the ye’s? That is, are you studying the Word of God every day of your life, earnestly and carefully, to find out what is God’s will for you, and are you doing it every time you find it? If so, you are on praying ground and belong to the class whose prayers God will answer and give you what you ask. If not, you do not belong to the class whose prayers God promises to answer.
I had another illustration of this same thing in our church in Chicago. I had in my church two women, one the mistress, the other the maid. The mistress was an earnest and intelligent Christian. One night at the close of a meeting the maid came to me and said, “Miss W (that is, her mistress), thinks, Mr. Torrey, that I ought to have a talk with you.”
“Why, Jennie, does Miss W think that you ought to have a talk with me?”
“Because I am in great perplexity.”
I said, “What are you perplexed about?”
She replied, “I am perplexed because God does not answer my prayers.”
“Oh,” I said, “there is nothing to be surprised about in that. Does God anywhere promise to answer your prayers? God does tell us very plainly in His Word whose prayers He will answer.” Then I quoted again 1 John 3:22: “Whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight.”
“Now, Jennie,” I said, “does that describe you? Are you studying the Word of God every day of your life to find out what God wishes you to do, and do you do it every time you find it?”
“No,” she replied, “I do not.”
“Then,” I said, “there is nothing mysterious, is there, about God’s not answering your prayers?”
“No,” she said, “there is not.”
I put the same question to each one of you. Are you studying the Word of God every day of your life to find out what the will of God is, and doing it every time you find it? If you are, as I have said, you are on praying ground, and God will heed your prayers and give you the things that you ask of Him; but if you are neglecting the study of the Word of God, to find out what His will is, or failing to do that will every time that you discover it, then you have no right whatever to expect God to answer your prayers. He does not promise to do so. Indeed, He distinctly says in His Word that He will not.
Now, you may go right through your Bible and you will find, in regard to every one of the great promises of God to answer our prayers, that this same thought comes out, in the connection in which the promise is found. Take, for example, that wonderful promise of Jesus Christ to answer prayer, which is so often quoted and is so familiar to us all—John 14: 13-14, “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name I will do it.” Now, most people, when they quote this promise, stop there, and therefore get the impression that if anyone asks anything in Christ’s name, Jesus Christ offers to do it. But Jesus Christ did not stop there, He went on. Look at it again:
“And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye ask anything in my name, I will do it. If ye love me, keep my commandments, (or, as the Revised Version treads, ‘If ye love me ye will keep my commandments’), and I will pray the Father and he will give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth: Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”
In other words, Jesus Christ said to His disciples that if they had that love to Him that led them to keep His commandments (that is, to study His Word and find out what His commandments were, and did them every time they discovered them) that He would pray the Father, and the Father, in answer to His prayers, would give them the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit would guide them in their prayers, so that they would pray “according to the will of God,” and that whatsoever they (they who keep His commandments and were therefore led by the Holy Spirit) should ask in His Name, that He would do.
Turn to another familiar promise—one of the most remarkable promises in the whole Bible regarding God’s answering prayer—John 15:9, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” This verse is constantly quoted as if it read “If ye abide in me, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you,” but it does not so read. You have left out one of the most important clauses in the verse. Let me read it again as it really reads: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you.” So the Lord Jesus tells us that it is not only necessary that we abide in Him, but that His words abide in us, if we are to ask so as to get what we ask.
Now, in order that Christ’s words may abide in us, we must study these words, must we not? Unless we get them in us, they certainly cannot stay in us, and we certainly cannot get Christ’s words in us unless we study them diligently.
But it is not enough to get Christ’s words in us: His words must “abide” in us, that is, “stay” in us, and there is only one possible way in which Christ’s words can stay in us, and that is by our diligently obeying them. Three verses further down in this same chapter Jesus says again, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” So you can go right straight through your Bible and you will find that every promise of God to answer our prayers is made to those who diligently study His Word that they may know His will, and who always obey His will every time they find it. Are you greatly perplexed as to why God does not give you the things you ask? There is no mystery at all about it; you are not studying God’s Word to find out His will for you, or else you are not doing it every time you find it. You are doing it in many instances, but if there is some particular thing you are not doing that you know God wishes you to do, then there is not the slightest reason why you should expect God to answer your prayers.
R. A. (Reuben Archer) Torrey, 1856-1928. The Power of Prayer and the Prayer of Power.
