THE NORTHERN KENTUCKY SEARCHER
"Search the scriptures: for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. " (John 5:39)

VOLUME 2, NUMBER 16, MAY 19, 2002

DOES GOD HEAR THE PRAYERS OF NON-CHRISTIANS?  

            This is an excellent question and one that deserves careful consideration.  Let us first understand the meaning of “hear” as it appears in the title and as I will be referring to it in the answer.  When we write of God “hearing” prayers, we are writing in the sense of His answering those prayers.  1 John 5:14 – 15, shows this to be true.  The passage says, “And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us: and if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.”  

            The best way to answer the question is to simply look at some of the scriptures that serve to provide the answer.  We will begin wit Psalm 34:15 – 16.  David wrote, “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.  The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.”    Psalm 145: 18 – 20, also speaks to the issue.  It says, “The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of them that fear Him, He also will hear their cry, and will save them.  The Lord preserveth all them that love Him; but all the wicked shall He destroy.”  Proverbs 15:29 , is even more specific.  Solomon wrote, “The Lord is far from the wicked: but He heareth the prayer of the righteous.”  

            As we move in the New Testament, we find the statement made by the man who had been born blind and was healed of his blindness by Jesus in John 9.  In verse 31, he said, “Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth His will, him He heareth.”    There are those who have questioned whether or not that passage can be used to shed light on whose prayers God hears.  They have argued that he was simply a man who had been born blind and not an inspired individual.  That is true, but what he said certainly coincides with the teaching of the psalms.  It is not necessary to be inspired in order to know what God’s Word says.  

            In 1 Peter 3:12, Peter wrote, “For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.”  I find nothing in God’s Word that would indicate that non-Christians have the assurance of God “hearing” their prayers.  

            Having said that, I hasten to address a particular circumstance.  In Acts 10: 1 – 4, we read the following about Cornelius: “There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God always.  He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius.  And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord?  And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.”  If what happens to Cornelius can be understood to be an answer to his prayers, then we can get a pretty good idea of what he was praying.  He was going to be told, “what thou oughtest to do”, indicating that he was praying for understanding and help to know what to do to be pleasing to God and have his sins forgiven.  

            I truly believe that the word of God teaches that a non-Christian who is sincerely seeking the truth and is praying to God for the opportunity to learn it, will be given that opportunity.  The sincere seeker of truth will find it.  In Matthew 7: 7 – 8, Jesus said, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”  The “everyone” of verse 8 must contextually refer to the kind of individual described in the Beatitudes of Matthew 5:3 – 12.  it is the spiritually minded, humble man or woman who is truly seeking and searching.

                                                            Greg Litmer

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

 Being a public educator, I was recently given some information which I found to beneficial in regard to teaching others about the Bible.  It also tells us something about ourselves.

 WE LEARN AND RETAIN---  

10% of what we hear

15% of what we see

20% of what we both hear and see

40% of what we discuss with others

80% of what we do “hands on”

90% of what we try to teach others

If we want to learn and retain more information about God’s will, START TEACHING OTHERS!

                                                ---Charles Willis