Pray - Part 3 - Prayer Walls Series

Pray

Pt. 3 - Prayer Walls

I. Introduction

We have talked about how prayer reveals our intimacy levels. We are intimate with who we pray to, for and with reveals how "deep" you are in your walk with your Father and with. Then last week we discussed pattern. How many of you have been consciously praying the pattern? God be revealed. God set our world right. God meet my basic needs. God help me to be forgiven and forgiving. God protect me from me and the enemy. This pattern pulls at the heart of God. If we are going to pray we might as well pray like God!

There is an obscure passage of Scripture found in a book in the Bible that most people don’t read very much because of its dark and dreary inclination. But hidden in it’s 3rd chapter is a statement that describes with supreme accuracy most of us and how we feel when it comes to prayer. The writer is discussing his relationship with God and his prayer life and he makes this statement:

II. Text

Lamentations 3:8-9

8 And though I cry and shout, he has shut out my prayers. 9 He has blocked my way with a high stone wall.

Or perhaps even more like us in the Message translation:

Even when I cry out and plead for help, he locks up my prayers and throws away the key. He sets up blockades with quarried limestone. He’s got me cornered.

III. Blocked and Stopped

Have you ever felt like this? Have you ever felt like God was not only not listening, but perhaps was shutting out or throwing out your prayers? Have you ever felt like shaking your fist at God and asking Him why He refused to listen and respond? Ever felt like your prayers were blocked and stopped? I know that is the case in my prayer life at times. What I have discovered is that according to Scripture there are at least 3 reasons why our prayers are locked up, shut out, and stopped. We have direct control over 2 of these blocking factors. The third is out of our hands, but must still be recognized and factored into the equation of our prayer life!

A. The Wall of Iniquity

The first wall that can block and stop our prayers is revealed clearly and multiple times in Scripture. Listen to:

Psalms 66:18 - If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:

(If I had been cozy with evil, the Lord would never have listened.)

Proverbs 28:9 - He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination. (God has no use for the prayers of the people who won’t listen to him.) - Can you blame Him? I don’t have a lot of patience when my kids won’t listen to me. When they ask my advise and then won’t do what I told them to do why bother listening or answering?

Isaiah 59:1-3 - Look! Listen! God’s arm is not amputated—he can still save.

God’s ears are not stopped up—he can still hear. There’s nothing wrong with God; the wrong is in you. Your wrongheaded lives caused the split between you and God. Your sins got between you so that he doesn’t hear.

Your hands are drenched in blood, your fingers dripping with guilt, Your lips smeared with lies, your tongue swollen from muttering obscenities.

Did you see the wall? Our own regard for iniquity. Our own sin blocks our prayers. I hate these passages of Scripture! My sin keeps God from hearing me! The silence I endure is my fault.

This is why I am constantly challenging you to live pure. I know it is hard. It is a constant struggle to keep our mind stayed on the Lord, to capture the mind of Christ. However, your prayer life depends on it. I know God responds to the cry of a sinner because He responded to mine. However, if we believe the Word then it is those of us who are His children, the saved, that He doesn’t listen to if we have regard for iniquity. That is a higher standard. Didn’t say we had committed sin just regarded it. You can block your own prayers! We build walls that defeat and stop our own prayers!

I want to challenge you this morning . . . if your are faced with unanswered, blocked, stopped, prayers and if silence is like a canopy over your head you may need to examine whether or not Isaiah 59 (you ought to go back and read the first 15 verses) doesn’t describe you. Perhaps, if we would simply repent, get our mind right, drop iniquity like it was hot, then at the same time we would turn the key and release our prayers and find our answers, direction, and provision!