Hypocrite's Prayer Series

There is more than this that can hinder our prayers, and we don't have time to go into all of them. But just quickly, if you're lukewarm, it hinders your prayers. If you're too busy, it hinder your prayers. If you are chasing money too much, it hinders your prayers. If you have too little to do, it can hinder prayers because you can become a gossip and a busybody. If you have no order or discipline in your life, it can hinder your prayers. If you have any sin. The Bible is clear that sins will cloud you, sins will keep you from wanting to be in the presence of God. And one pastor said, "Prayer will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from praying. You choose." I'd rather pray and stay away from sin. Disobedience can keep you from praying. Wrong motives can hinder your prayers.

Over and over again we have to realize that we have to live right if we are going to pray right. And if you feel that your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling, if they have no power, if there is no intimacy in your prayer time, men and women, do a relational inventory. Maybe there is somebody you need to forgive. Maybe there is somebody you need to ask forgiveness from. But if your prayers are not getting through, you need to look at your relationships and see what God is saying to you there before you think about what you're saying to him this way.

Now, allow me just a little bit of latitude. This text is very much for husbands. But I want to talk to all men, from the youngest man in this room to the eldest man the youngest boy in this room. I don't think society is doing a very good job of honoring woman. I don't think they are. I think they are demeaning women, we are not honoring women, and we need to step it up. We need to honor all women, not just the one we are married to. We need to honor all women and elevate their stand, and take care of them and honor them and see them as the beautiful creation that God has made them; the fine china that should be taken care of. I can tell you society is not doing a good job.

In Steubenville, Ohio, in 2002 there was a notorious rape case in which two high school boys were drunk, got a girl drunk and took advantage of the young lady, raped her, recorded it, posted it online, and society was outraged by it. A Christian author, Ann Voskamp, she wrote an open letter to her son because she saw this happening, and she just thought we've got to say something. We've got to tell men how they should treat women. We've got to tell young boys how they need to grow up. And so she told her son in this open letter that's online, she told him about abuses that she saw in her church in her youth group where the boys were not behaving well and the adult male leaders were not behaving well towards the young women. And when they brought it to the attention in their church, she was told this: "Well, boys will be boys."

And so she writes her son. She said:

"Son. When the prevailing thinking is boys will be boys, girls will be garbage.

And that is never the heart of God.