DO ALL HEALING EXPERIENCES OCCUR PURELY BECAUSE WE HAVE PRAYED? OR PUT DIFFERENTLY AND BROADLY: ARE ALL MIRACLES OR DIVINE INTERVENTIONS ALWAYS THE RESULT OF OUR PRAYER EFFORT?
By Ezekiel Kimosop
My answer to these two questions at the outset is No.
Please hold your horses and let me qualify my opinion....
While prayer is an important tool for "moving the hand of God" so to speak, my biblical view is that not every divine experience is necessarily attributed to our prayers.
My view is that God can and often does [in the exercise of His sovereign power], make interventions for us because of our covenant relationship with Him and primarily in accordance with His higher purposes.
Do you remember Abraham's story in Genesis 12 when he went to Egypt and Pharaoh sought to take away his wife from him? Abraham feared for his life and chose to lie that Sarah was his sister! However, we know from the Bible that God intervened and rescued his wife so that the covenant seed is not corrupted!
There are numerous other illustrations in the Bible that demonstrate that God took personal initiative which was not at the prompting of prayer.
When God visited Abraham in Genesis 18, He sovereignly chose to reveal to Abraham His intention to destroy the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for their wickedness that stung to high heavens.
This gave Abraham an opportunity to plead for God's mercy on the righteous in that city, knowing that his nephew Lot dwelt there.
God finally spared Abraham's nephew and his two daughters from the hail and brimstone that ultimately rained on the city.
Was Lot spared because he prayed in advance? Absolutely not! God graciously preserved him for His higher purposes!
Lot went on to become the ancestor of the Moabites and the Ammonites through his incestuous relationship with his two daughters (Genesis 19).
The Moabites and the Ammonites later became great enemies of Israel because of their idolatry.
We know from the Bible that these two great men of faith, despite their failings and separation through centuries, were later reunited by God through Ruth, the faithful Moabite widow who followed Naomi back to Bethlehem. Ruth married Boaz the man from the house of Judah [Abraham's lineage] and by God's grace the two became the great grand parents of King David and of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Do you now see why God spared Lot, a man who pitched his tent towards Sodom and finally dwelt among wicked Sodomites? (Read Genesis 13).
Does this story not speak to the sinfulness and disobedience which described us before Christ graciously rescued us? (Read Romans 5:8).
In 1 Samuel, we come across the story of a great woman of faith called Hannah who was barren and who cried to God for a son.
God exceeded her expectations and added her more children, three sons and daughters beside Samuel (see 1 Sam. 2:21).
Now fast forward to King Solomon...
This great king prayed for wisdom to rule his people well. God went beyond his request and granted him unparalleled wealth! Had he petitioned God for riches? Of course not!
In the New Testament Scripture, we see God making several interventions even where the beneficiaries were unaware of His divine moves.
He provided bread to the five thousand people who were following Jesus like sheep.
Jesus at one point told Peter that Satan desired to sift him like wheat but He (Christ) had prayed for him that his faith may not fail him. Peter was definitely not aware of what was going on until Christ revealed this fact to him!
CONCLUSION
Let me conclude by saying that there are many situations, known or unknown to us, under which God miraculously intervenes in our lives (cf. Job 37). This is not to suggest that prayer is not important. It simply affirms that God is sovereignly at the centre of our lives, always seeking to fulfill His divine purposes in our lives.
I wish to underscore the fact that God primarily preserves His saints in all generations of human civilization because of His covenant relationship with them.
The psalmist teaches in Psalm 37:25 that God never forsakes the righteous or subjects their children to disgrace.
As we daily seek the face of God and petition Him over our needs, let's always bear in mind that God is exceedingly gracious and lovingly attends to our needs because we are members of His divine household.
God also graciously preserves the unrighteousness and the wicked, giving them bread and releasing the rains upon the righteous and the wicked alike.
We know that the unrighteous men never pray to God neither do they know Him yet God sustains them. This is what theologians refer to as God's sustaining grace.
This does not however suggest that God overlooks the works of the wicked. The truth is that God has reserved a window of opportunity for all men to repent.
When that window closes, He will judge all men and recompense each man according as he deserves.
Shalom.
© Ezekiel Kimosop Teaching Series 2016
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