Does God Bless Non-Christians And Answer Their Prayers?
Q: Does God bless non-Christians and answer their prayers, and how should Christians understand that?
A: God may bless unbelievers, people who are in rebellion to Him. First of all, there is the very legitimate concept of common grace. Jesus alluded to this when He said in Matthew 5:45, “He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” There are certain things in this world which are a blessing for all of humanity, and do not depend on whether people are surrendered to God or rebelling against God. It’s good to keep that in mind. Every day that an unbeliever wakes up with breath in their lungs is a blessing from God. They may not recognize it, and they may rebel against it. But even the gift of life itself is part of the realm of common grace.
God is perfectly free to answer the prayers of anyone he likes, even unbelievers and those in rebellion against Him. He is under zero obligation to do so; He has made no promise to answer the prayers of unbelievers. But if God wants to show the riches of His grace or maybe to increase somebody’s accountability so that the judgment upon them is eventually even more severe, He can do that. There are times when God will answer the prayer of an unbeliever, but He is not obligated to, and He has not promised to do that.
It’s the goodness and the kindness of God that lead us to repentance. Yes, I think God does answer the prayers of people and even blesses them. On the day of accountability, they’re going to see their whole life in review and realize how good God was to them. Yet if they still did not respond to Him, they will not be saved. Biblically speaking, this disparity is mentioned at times. Think of Psalm 73 when the writer, Asaph, is deeply distressed about the prosperity of the wicked. But then he goes into the house of the Lord and sees that while the wicked seem to be blessed in the present moment, their end is destruction.