II Corinthians 12:7-10
“God Says No – Paul”
October 27, 2002 - 23^rd  Sunday after Pentecost

         This past week I took some people fishing. I wanted them to have a good time, so that morning I prayed we would catch fish. Two of these folks had never been fly-fishing before, so my family can confirm that in our morning prayers I cynically prayed for God to send “a couple of really stupid fish” to us. He didn’t do it. We didn’t even see a fish that day. God didn’t answer my prayer.

         But you don’t need to hear about us getting skunked on a fishing trip to know that frequently prayers go unanswered. Almost everyone of us here has asked God for much more important blessings than a brace of dumb trout. Whether for yourself or for someone else, you’ve prayed for healing, for employment, for restoration of a marriage, for safety, for relief from depression, for a scholarship, for success in business, for salvation of someone you love – and your request went begging. God didn’t do it.

         So we all can relate to Paul in this morning’s text. Here is the great missionary apostle of the church. Here is the man whose prayers first brought the Gospel to Europe. Here is a man who has seen lofty visions of the Lord and heaven. Here is a man whose faith and de­votion is impeccable. Yet when he asks the Lord for relief from his pain – not once, but three times – his request is denied.

         Paul describes his problem in verse 7 as a “thorn in the flesh.” The word translated “thorn” here can refer to several kinds of sharp object, like a thorn or a splinter. But most often it means something large, something like a “stake.” It is no tiny puncture like my wife gets from her roses which bothered the apostle. It’s an excruciating pointed instrument pressing into his flesh like the stakes on which barbarians impaled their enemies.

         He goes on to call it a “messenger of Satan.” Paul sees his situation like Job in the Old Testament. God allowed Satan to test Job with calamity and disease, to take his family and his home, and then to torture his body with sores. God sometimes allows Satan freedom to trouble the saints, to make life miserable for those who deserve it least. The word “torment” at the end of the verse is literally “to strike with the fist,” over and over. Paul feels as if he’s being hit in the face by the devil. And God refused to do anything about it.

         We don’t know to what exactly Paul was referring. Nothing in this text or anywhere else in his writings gives us the exact nature of the “stake” which tormented him. So speculation has run rampant. One large school of thought, beginning with the church fathers and including Martin Luther, believes that Paul’s trouble came from other people, either from opponents within the church or from persecutors outside the church. They point to the insults, hardships, and persecutions he mentions in verse 10.

         Another school takes his image of a stake in the flesh to be a reference to some physical trouble. They point out how Paul referred to a debilitating illness in Galatians chapter 4 and how here in II Corinthians 10:10 he mentions accusations that his physical presence is unimpressive. So a whole catalog of medical ailments have been attributed to him. One view that I find a little comforting when I meet fellow pastors who could give Brad Pitt a run for the money is that Paul was simply ugly. His appearance was repulsive and caused others to ignore and insult him.

         More often the thought is that he had some chronic illness. He speaks here of his “weakness.” Some scholars who reflect on the visions he experienced and his fall to the ground on the Damascus road think it might have been epilepsy. Tertullian and Jerome imagined the kind of pain a stake would cause and reasoned that it was severe headaches. Historians note that malaria was common on the east coast of the Mediterranean and opt for that disease. A few look again to that verse in chapter 10 where Paul says he was accused of “speaking that amounts to nothing,” and suppose that he had a speech impediment.

         In modern times a common theory has been that Paul had eye trouble. It’s remembered how his conversion experience blinded him for a time. In connection with the illness he mentions to the Galatians, he commends them for being so concerned “you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me,” if it were possible. At the end of Galatians he mentions writing the closing words with his own hand in very large letters, as if he couldn’t see to write anything smaller.

         Another whole school of thought has it that Paul’s condition was more mental or spiritual in nature. Some modern scholars have wondered if depression might have plagued him. Calvin thought he suffered from spiritual temptations – to doubt, and to shirk his duties as an apostle. Others have thought he wrestled with more carnal temptations or perhaps even been homosexual.

         The fact is we just don’t know. We can guess and form theories all day long and still remain pretty much in the dark as to the exact source of Paul’s torment. What we can realize, and what a great many Bible students agree on, is that it is a good thing for you and me that the description of Paul’s “thorn” is so vague. Because no specific illness or trial of the soul is mentioned, almost anyone can identify with him here. We have all been in the position of finding our prayers about great troubles – whatever they are – go unanswered.

         Unanswered prayer is one of the great mysteries and struggles of being a Christian. We never see any result for a huge number of our requests. As C. S. Lewis said, “Every war, every famine or plague, almost every deathbed – is the monument to a petition that was not granted.”[1] We are constantly confronted with evidence that at least some of our prayers do not work as we hope. That’s what I’m sure motivated those statistical studies of prayer which I mentioned last week. In the face of all the negative evidence, one hopes for some solid proof that praying is ultimately a successful activity.

         However, this bit of personal testimony from Paul calls us to a better and deeper understanding of how God uses prayer in our lives. What constitutes a successful prayer is not necessarily receiving exactly the item requested. A good prayer may receive an answer which is not at all what we wanted or expected. That is what Paul discovered and shared with us in these verses.

         Three times, Paul tells us in verse 8, he pleaded with God to have his “thorn” taken away. We don’t know if he meant that literally, that there were three distinct occasions of prayer, or if he simply prayed a number of times, enough that it was clear God was saying “No.” He may have remembered that Jesus Himself prayed three times in the Garden of Gethsemane, asking God to be delivered from death on the Cross. God said “No” to His own Son each time.

         So there is plain truth in the idea that there is no such thing as unanswered prayer. He answers every prayer, but sometimes, perhaps often, the answer is “No.” God’s answer to prayer can be His refusal to comply with what we ask.

         It is not too hard to see that God may frequently deny our requests because He knows better than we do what is best for us. When I was 16 years old my Boy Scout troop in southern California was planning a summer trip to Alaska. The price of the trip was several hundred dollars. Having just learned to drive and been blessed by aunt and uncle with an old Plymouth they no longer wanted, I had an inspiration. Gasoline then was still only thirty-nine cents or so a gallon. I could save the cost of airfare by driving myself and Eddie my best buddy three thousand miles up I-5 through British Columbia and over the gravel-paved Alaska Highway to meet the rest of the troop in Anchorage. It would be a great adventure and save money too!

         My sixteen year-old mind could not comprehend why my mother said “No” to this incredibly brilliant plan. I just did not understand what is so obvious to me now as one of my own children approaches that same age. My mother possessed wisdom which I had yet to acquire. She refused my request because it was not brilliant, just foolish and dangerous.

         In his Letters to Malcom, C. S. Lewis wrote, “If God had granted all the silly prayers I’ve made in my life, where should I be now?”[2] Sometimes God says “No” because in His infinite wisdom and concern for our lives He knows that what we are asking is just stupid. What we want would only get us into trouble.

         Not only our silliness but our sins can also cause God to say “No.” We may ask for sinful motives. James 4:3 tells us God will not grant prayers for gifts that are merely selfish indulgence. And the mere presence of unacknowledged and ongoing sin in our lives can hinder our prayers. Lack of forgiveness to others, great doubts, and even trouble with our spouse are all mentioned in Scripture as hindrances to good prayer.[3]

         John Allen Lavender tells a story about Norman Vincent Peale.[4] When Peale was a boy, he found a big, black cigar, slipped into an alley, and lit up. It didn’t taste good, but it made him feel very grown up…until he saw his father coming. Quickly he put the cigar behind his back and tried to be casual. Desperate to divert his father’s attention, Norman pointed to a billboard advertising the circus.

         “Can I go, Dad? Please, let’s go when it comes to town.”

         His father’s reply taught Norman a lesson he never forgot. “Son,” he answered, “never make a petition while at the same time trying to hide a smoldering disobedience.”

         Yes, we can pray all sorts of defective prayers, ruining our petitions through sin and stupidity. Yet in the end many of us find ourselves where Paul is in our text. For no discernible reason, God does not give what we ask. Paul’s prayer was not hindered by a sinful soul. In the preceding verses he had just described the incredible spiritual vision God gave him. He was not being selfish. His primary motive was what it always was, to be able to preach the Gospel as energetically and often as possible. Removal of his problem would free him to serve God better. And his request is certainly not foolish. Paul would have been better off without this “thorn in the flesh.” But God said “No,” just as He often says to us.

         God can and does say “No” to perfectly good prayers, prayers without defect. He says “No” to sincere prayers, to unselfish prayers, to holy prayers, to wise prayers. After the fourth or fifth shooting by the Maryland snipers, God heard thousands if not millions of sincere, unselfish, holy prayers for an end to the killers’ spree. But it was only Thursday, after 11 had died, that the answer came. For too long, it seems to us, He said “No.”

         Here Paul teaches that God may say “No” to what we ask because He has a different and, frankly, mysterious answer. What He said to Paul is there in verse 9: “My grace is suf­ficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” It’s a divine paradox which lies at the heart of everything we believe. God does His most powerful deeds in those who have the least power and the weakest ability. Whatever afflicted him, the weakness it caused him was a sign that God’s greatest power was at work in Paul.

         The Gospel message itself is that our salvation came through the weakness and ulti­mately the death of Jesus Christ. If God had answered Jesus’ prayer to escape the thorns He wore on His head, the sharp points nailed into His hands and feet, and the iron stake driven into His side, then you and I would have no hope at all. Without the weakness of His death, there could be no power of His resurrection for you and me. God’s power was perfected by the weakness of Jesus. The weakness, the dying, was necessary for the glory and the power to be possible. Paul discovered that the same necessity for being weak, in order to know God’s power, works itself out in our lives.

         If God paved our way through life by answering every reasonable and unselfish prayer, you and I might, as Paul realized, become conceited, think we have some kind of power. We might forget how we depend on God from start to finish. We might imagine that we are something other than sinners saved by grace and can rely on ourselves. So God sends us, like He sent Paul, troubles with no easy and simple remedies. He sends us problems to pray about, knowing that He will say “No” to those prayers. He does it to bring us always deeper into the truth that rules His kingdom, the truth of grace. His power triumphs in our weakness.

         In England in Canterbury Cathedral we saw the spot where Thomas à Becket was murdered by four knights of King Henry II in 1170 A.D. Becket was a big man of great power. He became archbishop because he was the king’s best buddy and Henry thought he could control him. But when the king put politics before his relationship with Christ, Becket defied his friend. When his knights heard their king cursing this troublesome priest, they pursued the archbishop into the cathedral. There Becket refused to run, to defend himself, or to be led off to prison. He calmly said, “I accept death in the name of the Lord.” So they cut him down with their swords.

         Becket was stronger dead than when he was alive. The people made the spot where he died a shrine and demanded that their king repent. Less than four years later King Henry II walked barefoot to the cathedral, knelt and kissed the stone that marked Becket’s place of death, and allowed himself to be publicly whipped by the bishops. By letting go of life and power, Becket received a greater glory as a martyr for Christ.

         Paul is no masochist in verse 10 when he says, “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.” He was discovering the grace of Jesus Christ, the greatest power our world has seen. In Jesus it was absolutely true that when he was weak, then he was strong.

         My own words can only fail to emphasize how deep the mystery is here. We are to find the highest grace in our lowest moments. We are to find God nearest when He seems farthest. We are to receive the best answers to our prayers when it all appears worst. Unanswered prayers are God’s invitation into the mystery of grace.

         Listen again to C. S. Lewis: “I once heard from an experienced Christian, ‘I have seen many striking answers to prayer and more than one that I thought miraculous. But they usually come at the beginning, before conversion, or soon after it. As the Christian life proceeds, they tend to be rarer. The refusals, too, are not only more frequent; they become more unmistakable, more emphatic.’” In other words, the result of spiritual progress is not necessarily more success in getting your prayers answered. It might be just the opposite.

         Lewis continues, “Does God then forsake just those who serve Him best? Well, He who served Him best of all said, near His tortured death, ‘Why hast thou forsaken me?’ When God becomes man, that Man, of all others, is least comforted by God, at His greatest need. There is a mystery here which, even if I had the power, I might not have the courage to explore. Meanwhile, little people like you and me, if our prayers are sometimes granted, beyond all hope and probability, had better not draw hasty conclusions to our own advantage. If we were stronger, we might be less tenderly treated. If we were braver, we might be sent, with far less help, to defend far more desperate posts in the great battle.”[5]

         Glorious answers to prayer are not all we hope for. They may even distract us from something better. Paul heard the Lord say, “My grace is sufficient for you.” I both fear and hope that I might hear it too. God help you and I to listen for grace when we need it most.

         Amen.

Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2002 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj