How do we reconcile the ability of God to save, and the fact that our prayers were not answered concerning loved ones?
I trust I talk with great feeling and respect for people who have unsaved relatives. I say that not as a 'get out', because I believe we must be very careful what we say.
In the first place, some people die unsaved—the Bible says they do; but I don't think it is left to us necessarily to say that such and such a person is lost. We can say, 'as far as we know they died unsaved'. What may happen in the closing moments of a person's life, I think we'd better leave that for God, and then for himself one day to tell us. I'm not thereby minimizing the seriousness of dying unsaved. People do die unsaved, but in particular cases let's leave it for God to say.
Next, when it comes to God's sovereignty and man's free will, I confess I am not able to offer you any explanation that would reconcile the two. I will add that I've never heard of any explanation that reconciles the two and I should think that any theory you come across that does is wrong, because in this matter we are dealing with something that by definition goes beyond our powers of understanding. If anybody should tell me they have understood it, I would have the gravest of doubts. Very often, we think of God on one side and us on the other, as though we were cogwheels at the same level. That is not true. God acts at altogether different levels from us; but the relationship between God's sovereignty and man's free will is an enormous thing. All I would observe is, I'm not aware that Scripture preaches that, in order to get somebody saved, God bypasses their own free will and decisions. To take away a person's free will would reduce them to something less than a human being. I don't think God ever does that. Not even to get somebody saved.
