{"id":30987,"date":"2010-07-28T16:20:51","date_gmt":"2010-07-28T16:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/when-god-doesnt-come-through\/"},"modified":"2010-07-28T16:20:51","modified_gmt":"2010-07-28T16:20:51","slug":"when-god-doesnt-come-through","status":"publish","type":"sermons","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/when-god-doesnt-come-through\/","title":{"rendered":"When God &#8220;Doesn&#8217;t Come Through&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2010\/07\/19123.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">When\nI&#8217;m in trouble and I ask specifically for God to relieve me of that trouble,\nmost of the time he doesn&#8217;t. I wonder why that is. Is it because God loves one\nmore than the other? Is it because someone has done something wrong in the\nprocedure of prayer? Is it because he was sleeping? Is it because we don&#8217;t\nserve him enough to deserve for him to answer our prayers at that particular\ntime? Or is it a stupid question?<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">It\nmay be a stupid question, but it&#8217;s a real question.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Recently\nGod &#8220;Didn&#8217;t Come Through&#8221; for Me<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p><em><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Illustration:<\/span><\/em><span style=\"\" class=\"\"> In my particular scenario\njust a few weeks ago, my mother was dying. I asked God for a special request.\nBy her bedside I prayed 50 times. I counted. Fifty times I asked God to give me\nthis request. I had studied in the Gospels the teaching of Jesus on prayer,\nthat he admired when someone came knocking at the door continuously. This gave\nme the notion that if I knocked continuously, eventually God would arise from\nhis seat, open the door, and fix my problem.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">I\nasked God specifically in that intimate moment alone with my mother to give her\none of two things. The first request was my desire. The second was a\nconcession. The first request was that he give my mother 18 more years. I\nprayed 50 times, &#8220;God, give her 18 more years, or take her today,&#8221;\nbecause she was so sick. (I asked for 18 more years for two particular reasons.\nNumber one, my mother was 62, and 18 more years would make her 80. I thought\nthat was a good round number. But more specifically, my oldest brother, Don,\njust had a baby girl. Her name is Michelle, and I thought it would be great if\nmy mother could see Michelle graduate from high school.)<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">This\nrequest did not just come out of the air as it might sound. I received the\nrequest from a creative prayer by Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20:1-6. Hezekiah is on\nhis deathbed, and he asks God for a special request:<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">In those days, Hezekiah became ill and was at the\npoint of death. The prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, went to him and said,\n&#8220;This is what the Lord says, &#8216;Put your house in order because you are\ngoing to die. You will not recover.'&#8221; Hezekiah turned his face to the wall\n[And I can relate to that. He turned his face away from Isaiah because he\ndidn&#8217;t want Isaiah to see the tears that were mounting up in his eyes and the\nfear on his face.] and he prayed to the Lord, &#8220;Remember, O Lord, how I\nhave walked before you faithfully with wholehearted devotion and have done what\nis good in your eyes.&#8221; And Hezekiah wept bitterly. [Oh, I&#8217;ve been there.]<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Before Isaiah had left the middle court, the Word of\nthe Lord came to him. &#8220;Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people,\n&#8216;This is what the Lord the God of your father David, says: I have heard your\nprayer and seen your tears; I will heal you. On the third day from now you will\ngo up to the temple of the <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Lord.<\/span>\nI will add 15 years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the\nhand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for my sake and for the\nsake of my servant David.'&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">God\nheard his prayer, saw his tears, and gave him 15 more years. Now, I asked for\n18. But he didn&#8217;t give me 18 more years, not even 18 months, not even 18 days,\nnot even 18 hours. My mother passed away.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">I\nhave to ask myself, <em>What&#8217;s that all about<\/em>?\n<em>Does God not love me? Have I not served him like Hezekiah did? Did he not\nsee my tears when I turned my face to the wall and wept bitterly? Why did God\ncome through for Hezekiah and not for Randy Frazee?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">There\nis another instance when God comes through. It is found in John 9, and it is\nthe story I want to tell today. It is a familiar story. The story is of a blind\nman whom God came through for, a no-name servant of God. It is divided into\nfour sections: the situation, the miracle, the response, and then the lesson\nthat Jesus wants us to get.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"\" class=\"\">The\nsituation<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Look\nat verses one and two as the story begins: &#8220;As he went along, he saw a man\nblind from birth. His disciples asked him, &#8216;Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his\nparents that he was born blind?'&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Why\ndid the disciples ask such a question? This teaching&#8211;that illness came as a\ndirect result from sin&#8211;was propagated by the Jewish religious leaders of that\nday. Because this man was born blind, the notion was that he didn&#8217;t have much\nopportunity to sin before he was born, although they did carry the idea that\none could sin in the womb. This child, now a grown man, didn&#8217;t have opportunity\nto sin, so it must have been the sin of his parents while he was in the womb\nthat caused his blindness. So the disciples are merely asking that which they\nlearned from living in a Jewish community around religious leaders.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">It\nis true that disease, illness, and death are a direct result of sin. We do not\ndie, we do not experience disease because of God; rather, we experience these\nthings because we are in a sin-diseased world. It has brought decay and illness\nto us. God is not the cause of our sin. God, therefore, is not the cause of our\ndeath or our illnesses. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">However,\nit is true that there are instances where our sin directly causes our illness,\ndisease, and even death. There are examples of it in the Bible, and there are\nexperiences today where, as a direct result of the lifestyle we have chosen,\nthere are consequences that lead to physical ailments and death. But according\nto the Scriptures, most of the illnesses, most of the diseases, and most of the\ntime our death is not a result of something we have done directly, nor because\nof a particular cause-and-effect relationship.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">In\nverse 3 Jesus give the solution in this particular case. Jesus responds to the\ndisciples:<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">&#8220;Neither\nthis man nor his parents sinned,&#8221; said Jesus, &#8220;but this happened so\nthat the work of God might be displayed in his life. As long as it is day, we\nmust do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.\nWhile I&#8217;m in the world, I am the light of the world.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Jesus,\nknowing the content file of everyone&#8217;s life, opens up in his mind this man&#8217;s\nfile and declares that this man&#8217;s blindness is in fact not a result of his sin\nor his parents&#8217; sin. Rather, he says something unusual. It is not necessarily\nto be applied to everyone&#8217;s situation, but it was applied to [the blind man&#8217;s]\nfiles. He says this man&#8217;s blindness occurred so that the work of God might be\ndisplayed in his life.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Think\nabout that. He was blind&#8211;not necessarily caused by God, but his blindness was\ngoing to be used in a way that would display the work of God. God ordained this\nman to be born blind to lead us to an understanding that being born blind, or\nany other thing like that, does not challenge the goodness of God. If we\nexperience an ailment, illness, or defect of some sort, this does not challenge\nthe goodness of God. This man has been blind all of his life so that Jesus\nwould come to town on this particular day in history, not so that this man\ncould be healed of his blindness but so that the work of God might be displayed\nin his life.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"\" class=\"\">The\nmiracle<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">The\ncentral character in John 9 appears to be the blind man, but in reality the\ncentral character is Jesus. This is critical to the point of the story. The\nblind man is merely a beneficiary of the work and glory of Jesus, not the main\nevent or character. The miracle takes place in verses 6&#8212;12:<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Having said this, he spit on the ground and made\nsome mud with the saliva and put it on the man&#8217;s eyes. &#8220;Go,&#8221; he said\nto him. &#8220;Wash in the Pool of Siloam.&#8221; (This word means ~<em>sent~.) <\/em>So the man went and washed and\ncame home seeing. His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging\nasked, &#8220;Isn&#8217;t this the man who used to sit and beg?&#8221; Some claimed\nthat he was. Others said, &#8220;No, he only looks like him.&#8221; But he\nhimself insisted, &#8220;I&#8217;m the man.&#8221; &#8220;How then were your eyes\nopened?&#8221; they demanded. He replied, &#8220;The man they call Jesus made\nsome mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went\nand washed, and then I could see.&#8221; &#8220;Where is the man?&#8221; they\nasked him. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; he said.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Now,\nthat&#8217;s a miracle. This guy can see.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"\" class=\"\">The\nresponse<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Now\nthe reaction comes in verses 13&#8212;34, and it&#8217;s here we learn that the blind man\nis not the main character. He is not the main character but rather Jesus is,\nbecause the story immediately shifts in its focus to the religious leaders who\nstruggled with the miracle. They tried to find every angle they could to stump\nJesus and get him into trouble.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Look\nat verse 18. This is a story filled with humor. [The religious leaders] are out\nlooking for Jesus because they want to get him. They want to trap him. And you\nwill notice in these verses there is no concern on the part of the religious,\nspiritual, godly shepherds for the blind man&#8217;s situation. There is no point of\ncelebration. There is no sense of &#8220;Isn&#8217;t God good!&#8221; There&#8217;s no saying\nto him, &#8220;What is it like to be able to see? We&#8217;re so happy for you.&#8221;\nRather, they&#8217;re just bent on getting Jesus. Look at verse 18:<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">The Jews still did not believe that he had been\nblind and had received his sight until they sent for the man&#8217;s parents.\n&#8220;Is this your son?&#8221; they asked. &#8220;Is this the one you say was\nborn blind? How is it that he can now see?&#8221; <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">&#8220;We know he is our son,&#8221; the parents\nanswered, &#8220;and we know he was born blind. But how he can see now, or who\nhas opened his eyes, we don&#8217;t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for\nhimself.&#8221; His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for\nalready the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the\nChrist would be put out of the synagogue. That was why his parents said,\n&#8220;He is of age, ask him.&#8221; A second time they summoned the man who had\nbeen born blind. &#8220;Give glory to God,&#8221; they said. &#8220;We know this\nman is a sinner.&#8221; He replied, &#8220;Whether he is a sinner or not, I don&#8217;t\nknow. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see.&#8221; <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\"> Then they asked him, &#8220;What did he do to\nyou? How did he open your eyes?&#8221; <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">[The guy&#8217;s getting sick of telling the mud story.]\nHe says, &#8220;I have told you already, and you did not listen. Why do you want\nto hear it again? [Now he&#8217;s starting to jab back at them. He may have been\nblind, but he&#8217;s very witty.] Do you want to become his disciples, too?&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Then they hurled insults at him and said, &#8220;You\nare this fellow&#8217;s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke\nto Moses, but as for this fellow, we don&#8217;t even know where he comes from.&#8221;\nThe man answered, &#8220;Now that is just remarkable! You don&#8217;t know where he\ncomes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners.\nHe listens to the godly man who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening\nthe eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do\nnothing.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">To this they replied, &#8220;You were steeped in sin\nat birth. How dare you lecture us!&#8221; And they threw him out.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">They\nlost. They knew it, but they were the big guys. And so they threw him out and\nthey said, &#8220;You sinned in your mom&#8217;s womb. How dare you lecture us who are\nrighteous.&#8221; <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"\" class=\"\">The\nlesson<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Jesus\ncomes along and responds to what has been said in the presence of the blind\nman. The blind man is healed, and he goes away, and doesn&#8217;t know where Jesus\nis. He pursued Jesus and is in Jesus&#8217; presence. Imagine the situation. Jesus\nwill give us the lesson. Verse 35:<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when\nhe found him, he said, &#8220;Do you believe in the Son of Man?&#8221; &#8220;Who\nis he, sir?&#8221; the man asked. &#8220;Tell me so that I may believe in\nhim.&#8221; Jesus said, &#8220;You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one\nspeaking with you.&#8221; Then the man said, &#8220;Lord, I believe,&#8221; and he\nworshiped him. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Jesus said, &#8220;For judgment I have come into this\nworld, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Some Pharisees who were with him heard this and\nasked, &#8220;What? Are we blind too?&#8221; Jesus said, &#8220;If you were blind\nyou would not be guilty of sin; [That&#8217;s interesting. He&#8217;s turned it around] but\nnow that you claim that you see, your guilt remains.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Back\nto the idea of God coming through or not coming through. This is a bad concept\nfor us, a wrong perspective. It suggests there are times when God does not come\nthrough, but the Scripture tells us, and experience bears out that God always\nkeeps his promises. The blind man is healed of his blindness not because God\nloves him more, not because God heard him pray&#8211;there is no mention of prayer\nwhatsoever. The blind man is healed for a reason beyond his personal benefit.\nHe is healed, the Scripture tells us, through the lips of Jesus to accomplish\nthe purpose of God. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">He\nwas selected to be healed of his physical blindness so it might signal Jesus&#8217;\nability and desire to heal our greater and more long-lasting problem of spiritual\nblindness. The real healing available to everyone who asks is healing from\nspiritual blindness. Healing from physical blindness is like putting a Band-Aid\non a chainsaw wound. Our temporal problem is a physical problem, but our\neternal problem is spiritual blindness. If spiritual blindness is remedied, it\nwill automatically remedy physical blindness in due time. Jesus came to solve\nthe bigger of the two problems we experience. When we receive his solution for\nthe bigger problem, all of our physical problems in due time will be solved. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">God\nmay choose to heal you in this life in a physical way, but it doesn&#8217;t mean he\nloves you more or less. God may choose not to extend your life or to heal your\nphysical illness, but I&#8217;m here to tell you that a relationship with him will\nmake the difference as you experience physical ailment.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Listen\nto what I&#8217;m going to say. You are dying. Right now as the clock ticks, you are\ndying, and nothing is going to change that. It&#8217;s the way things are because sin\nhas entered into our world and into our lives. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">How\nmany times does God have to heal us before we say he is good? Because if he\nheals us of our illness today, we are only going to get ill again and\neventually die. How many times does he have to heal us of our physical ailments\nuntil we say he is good? The answer to the question is once. He only has to\nheal us once because there is only one healing that is essential and that is\nspiritual healing. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">The\nreality is anybody who calls upon the name of Jesus for spiritual healing from\nspiritual blindness will in every single scenario, yours included, be healed.\nWhen you experience spiritual healing, you experience eternity. And when you\nexperience eternity, that means every physical ailment is taken care of, and\nGod will wipe away from you.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">In\nthe meantime you are going to experience&#8211;I&#8217;ve just come up with my first\nbout&#8211; [of] serious sorrow; some of you have experienced it not once but twice,\nnot twice but three times. You know that when you&#8217;re in the valley of sorrow,\nwhich every single person&#8211;the righteous and the unrighteous, the saved and the\nunsaved&#8211;will go through, there is a critical difference between the experience\nof the person who knows God and the person who does not know God. You will see\nthat in the midst of your deepest sorrow&#8211;which you may be living in right now;\nit may begin this afternoon; if not this afternoon, tomorrow; if not tomorrow,\nTuesday&#8211;you will discover that when you&#8217;re in that valley with God, his\ncomfort and his contentment and his joy and his peace, his ability to hold you\nand cradle you, to be there with you, will make the essential difference. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">How\nmany times does God have to heal us? Just once. And anybody who asks to be\nhealed will be healed. That&#8217;s all that matters. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Randy Frazee <\/span><em><span style=\"\" class=\"\">has been\nsenior pastor of Pantego Bible Church in Arlington, Texas, since 1990. He is\nauthor of the forthcoming book <\/span><\/em><span style=\"\" class=\"\">The Connecting Church<em> (Zondervan, 2001). The church web site is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pantego.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">www.pantego.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\"> Randy Frazee<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">Preaching Today Tape # 209 <\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.preachingtodaysermons.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">www.PreachingTodaySermons.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\">A resource of Christianity\nToday International<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[306],"tax_ctp_authors":[2727],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[170],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[412],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_sermon_series":[],"tax_ctp_tags":[4084,5103],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-30987","sermons","type-sermons","status-publish","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-randy-frazee","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-goodness-of-god","tax_ctp_tags-suffering"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>When God &quot;Doesn&#039;t Come Through&quot; - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/when-god-doesnt-come-through\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When God &quot;Doesn&#039;t Come Through&quot; - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When I&#8217;m in trouble and I ask specifically for God to relieve me of that trouble, most of the time he doesn&#8217;t. I wonder why that is. Is it because God loves one more than the other? Is it because someone has done something wrong in the procedure of prayer? 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