Caller: I’d like to ask if I say that I know people that pray to Mary and their prayers were answered, and I was wondering how to reply, how would you answer me if I came to you and I said to you that I knew people who had prayed to Mary and their prayers were answered?
Pastor Doug: Because a prayer is answered does not mean that a person is doing the right thing by praying to Mary, because virtually every religion in the world—there are people who pray to Buddha—do you believe in Buddha, Eileen?
Caller: No.
Pastor Doug: Okay. They’ll tell you, well, our prayers are answered so that means that Buddha is real. And then, of course, there are people who pray to a variety of gods, both pagan and otherwise, that they say ‘proof that this god is real is because my prayers are answered’.
Before you join the Mormon church they typically ask you to say a special prayer and that your heart will be warmed and touched if this is the truth and every Mormon will tell you “I prayed and my heart was warmed and touched and that’s why I joined the church.” I don’t think that that’s a good criteria. The Bible tells us that we can be impressed by many things. First of all, Jesus sends the rain on the just and the unjust. He gives the sunshine to the good and evil. That means the Lord answers prayers of all kinds of people because He loves them—even though they’re sometimes praying to the wrong god. Now, for our friends who are listening, you might wonder why I’m saying this.
I believe Mary was a saint. I believe she was obviously the mother of Jesus. I believe in the virgin birth. I do not believe we are to pray to Mary because I don’t see a scripture anywhere that tells us to do that. If a person uses that argument, you’d have to say, what about the billion Buddhists in the world and all the Mohammedans and there’s all kinds of people who say their religion answers their prayers. Some people pray to animals, so that’s never a good argument. Okay? We have to say “What does the Bible say?”
Caller: Okay.