SEVEN HINDRANCES TO YOUR PRAYERS BEING ANSWERED
Sunday November 19, 2000
I would like this morning to talk on prayer and it’s importance in your life.
There are many things that are important in your spiritual life but I feel that the most important thing is your prayer life, because your prayer life is what keeps you able to maintain your everyday life.
As we start out this morning we are going to read several scriptures and we will start with the first one being the first hindrance to your prayers being answered!
Let’s turn to, James 4:3
3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
Even when we do ask God for something, we ask in order that we might spend it in a very selfish way.
A selfish purpose in prayer, robs prayer of power.
Very many prayers are selfish.
These may be prayers for things for which it is perfectly proper to ask, for things which is the will of God to give, but the motive of the prayer is entirely wrong, and so the prayer falls powerless to the ground.
The true purpose in prayer is that God may be glorified in the answer.
If we ask any petition merely that we may receive something to use in our own pleasures or in our own gratification in one way or another, we ask amiss and need not expect to receive what we ask.
This explains why many prayers remain unanswered.
For example, many a woman is praying for the conversion of her husband.
That certainly is a most proper thing to ask; but many a woman’s motive in asking for the conversion of he husband is entirely improper, it is selfish.
She desires that her husband may be converted because it would be so much more pleasant for her to have a husband that would get up on Sunday morning and take her to church, and talk to her about church.
Or it is so painful to think that her husband might die and be lost forever.
For some such selfish reason as this she desires the conversion of her husband.
The prayer is purely selfish.
Why should a woman desire the conversion of her husband?
First of all and above all, that God may be glorified; and that furtherance of God’s Kingdom here on earth will be given.
We have to be careful to make sure that our prayers are not in the least bit selfish!
A lot of people pray for a revival.
That certainly is a prayer that is pleasing to God and it is along the line of His will, but many prayers for revivals are purely selfish.
The churches desire revivals in order that the membership may be increased in order that the church may have a position of more power and influence in the community, in order that the church treasury may be filled, in order that a good report may be made at the conference or the association.
When we pray in such a selfish way as that we cannot expect God to answer such prayers.
Why then you may ask or how should we pray for a revival?
We need to pray that the glory of God be increased in our prayers and that the people of our church will be blessed spiritually and that we may all go out into the world and be seeking to find more and new people to come to church an to be blessed.
We have got to put God first if we ever think for a minute that we will be blessed.
When we pray for a revival or anything else we need to make sure that our motives are not selfish in any way.
The second hindrance to prayer we find in, Isaiah 59:1-2
Behold, the LORD’S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
Likewise in our day it is not the mental hurdles that man has to surmount nor any of his many problems, but his sin separates him from God.
Sin hinders prayer, no matter how you look at it sin in your heart will snap the power line between you and God.
Many a man prays and prays and gets absolutely no answer to his prayer.
Perhaps people are tempted to think that is not the will of God to answer or they may think that the days when God answered prayer, if He ever did, are over.
So the Israelites seem to have thought.
They thought that the Lords hand was shortened that it could not save, and that His ear had become heavy and that it could no longer hear!
“Not so,” said Isaiah. “God’s ear is just as open to hear as ever, His hand is just as mighty to save; but there is a hindrance.
That hindrance is your own sins!
Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you that He will not hear!
It is so today just as it was in those days, that many and many of people are crying to God in vain, simply because of sin in there life.
It may be some sin in there past that has been unconfessed and unjudged, it may be some sin in the present that is cherished, very likely is not even looked upon as sin, but you can rest assured somewhere there is sin hidden away in your heart or in your life and because of it God will not hear!
Anyone who finds their prayers ineffective should not conclude that the thing which he asks of God is not according to His will, but they should go to God alone and do like it asks in the,
Psalm 139:23-24
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
24 Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life.
After we do that we need to wait before Him until He puts His finger upon the thing that is displeasing in His sight.
Then this sin should be confessed and put away.
I can remember a time in my life when I was praying for different things that I thought that I must have but the answer did not come.
I cried out to God for these things, I reasoned with Him as to how necessary it was that I get them and get them at once, but no answer came.
It was then that I asked God to show me f there was something wrong in my one life.
Something came to mind that had often come up before.
Something definite but something that I was unwilling to confess as sin.
I said to God if this is wrong, I will give it up, but still no answer came!
In my innermost heart, though I had never admitted it, I knew it was wrong.
That is where I had to say, I was wrong, I have sinned, I will give it up!
Say it from the heart and mean it from the heart, I found peace and you too will find peace.
Sin is an awful thing, and one of the most awful things about it is the way it hinders prayer, the way that it severs the connection between us and the source of all grace and power and blessings.
Anyone who would have power in prayer must be merciless in dealing with his own sins!
In Psalm 66:18
18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:
So long as we hold onto sin or have any controversy with God, we cannot expect Him to hear our prayers!
If there is anything that is constantly coming up in your moments of close communion with God, that is the thing that hinders your prayers, put it away!
The third hindrance to prayer is found in, Ezekiel 14:3
3 Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be enquired of at all by them?
In effect the elders say, “Oh, brother Ezekiel, we don’t worship idols!” It was true they had not made idols, but the Lord said, “These men have set up their idols in their heart.”
Samson was also a man who pretended to be God’s man, and the Spirit of God did come upon him at times.
The Holy Spirit—never his hair—was the secret of his power.
But there came a day when he went out and “… he wist it not …” (Lev. 5:17)—he knew not that the Spirit of God had departed from him.
He had kept toying and playing with sin and at the same time wanting to be God’s man.
How many people today in the church keep toying and playing with sin and think they are getting by with it?
My friend, they are not getting by with it.
Judgment is inevitable.
They may go through the form and ritual of religion, keeping up a false front, but they actually have idols in their hearts.
Ezekiel is told by the Lord that these men are phonies.
They pretend they want to hear his message, but they do not hear it at all.
When he turns around, they will put a knife in his back.
Idols in the heart of man will cause God to refuse to listen to their prayers.
What is an idol?
An idol is anything that takes the place of God, anything that is the supreme object of our affection. God alone has the right to take first place in our hearts.
Everything and everyone else must be subordinate to Him!
Many a man makes an idol of his wife!
Not that a man can love his wife any too much, but he can put her in the wrong place, he can put her before God.
When a man regards his wife’s pleasure before God’s pleasure, when he gives her the first place and God the second place, his wife is an idol and God cannot hear his prayers.
Many a woman makes an idol of her children!
Not that we can love our children too much.
The more dearly that we love Christ, the more dearly we love our children, but we can put our children in the wrong place.
We can put them before God and their interests before God’s interests.
When we do this, our children are our idols.
Many a man makes an idol of his reputation or his business.
When reputation or business is put before God, God cannot hear the prayers of such a man!
There is one great question for us to decide, if we want to have power in prayer and that is, Is God absolutely first?
Is He before wife, is He before children, is He before husband, is He before business, before our own lives?
If not, then prevailing prayer is impossible!
God often calls our attention to the fact that we have an idol in our lives by not answering our prayers, and thus leading us to inquire as to why our prayers are not answered and so we discover the idol, put it away and then God hears our prayers.
Now let’s look at the fourth hindrance to our prayers not being answered in Proverbs 21:13
13 Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.
This is what God has said. Either it is true or it is not true.
I believe it is true, and I think we can find illustrations of this in public life in our day.
There is perhaps no greater hindrance to prayer than stinginess, the lack of liberality toward the poor and towards God’s work.
It is the one who gives generously to others who receives generously from God.
Give and it shall be given unto you.
Luke 6:38
38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
The generous man is the mighty man of prayer.
The stingy man is the powerless man of prayer.
One of the most wonderful statements about prevailing prayer is in,
1 John 3:22
22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.
This scripture is made in direct connection with generosity toward the needy.
In the context we are told that it is when we love, not in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth, when we open our hearts toward the brother in need, it is then and only then that we have confidence toward God in prayer.
Many people who are seeking to find the secret to their powerlessness in prayer need not seek far.
It is nothing more or less than their downright stinginess.
There was a man named George Mueller, who was a mighty man of prayer, because he was a mighty giver.
What he received from God never stuck to his fingers, he immediately passed it on to others.
He was constantly receiving because he was constantly giving.
When one thinks of the selfishness of the professing church today, how the orthodox churches of this land do not average one dollar per year per member for foreign missions, it is no wonder that the church has so little power in prayer.
If we want to get from God, we need to give to others.
Perhaps the most wonderful promise in the Bible in regard to God’s supplying our need is in, Philippians 4:19
19 But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
This glorious promise was made to the Philippian church, and made in immediate connection to their generosity.
The fifth hindrance to prayer is found in Mark 11:25
25 And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
Here is a condition that the individual must meet before prayer is heard and answered.
An unforgiving spirit will short-circuit the power of prayer, and that’s important to understand.
God forgives us for Christ’s sake That is the way we are saved.
But if you and I are going to have power in our lives, there must be forgiveness.
That is very important.
An unforgiving spirit is one of the commonest hindrances to prayer.
Prayer is answered on the basis that our sins are forgiven, but God cannot deal with us on the basis of forgiveness while we are harboring ill will against those who have wronged us.
You have got to forgive others if you ever expect for God to forgive you of your sins.
You can not go walking around with a pious attitude towards and even think that God will answer your prayers, it will not happen!
We all have to forgive anyone that we feel has wronged us at anytime.
Think of the many people out there that are crying to God for the conversion of their husband, or their wife, or their children, or their friends and wondering why their prayers are not being answered.
The whole secret is some grudge that they have in their hearts against someone who has injured them at some time on another.
Many a person is allowing a loved one to go down to eternity unsaved for the miserable gratification of hating someone!
Now the sixth hindrance to prayer is found in, 1 Peter 3:7
7 Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.
Although this seems to imply that both the husband and wife are Christians, I believe that these instructions to husbands would be applicable either way.
A husband is to treat his wife as the weaker vessel, and he is to give her honor because of that. I do not think the current women’s liberation movement is going to last very long.
I think a woman wants to be a woman, just as a man wants to be a man.
Because she is the weaker vessel, she is to be treated with honor.
The man is to give first place to her.
She gets into the car first as he holds the door for her.
When they enter a room, she goes first.
As they walk down the sidewalk, he walks on the outside for her protection. He is to treat her with honor.
When a woman loses her place, she doesn’t go up; she goes down.
When she takes her place, she can be treated with honor and given her rightful position.
I think every husband ought to treat his wife as someone special.
“That your prayers be not hindered.”
Peter says that if you are not getting along as husband and wife, it will ruin your family altar, and there is no use praying together.
If you are fighting like cats and dogs, well, God just doesn’t hear cats and dogs.
But when you are in agreement, you can pray together and your prayers will not be hindered.
Marriage is something which God has given to the entire human family, not only to Christians or to the nation Israel.
In the Book of Genesis we are told that God made man, and at that time man was alone.
I think the Lord let Adam be alone for a long time to let him know he was missing something.
Then Scripture says that God took man and from man He made woman.
Using the Hebrew words, Genesis 2:23 reads, “She shall be called Isha, because she was taken out of Ish.”
She is called “… an help meet for him” that is, a help that was fit for him.
In other words, she was to be the other half of him.
He was only half a man, and she was to be the other part of him.
With that in mind, you can see that the marriage relationship is not to be one of a man insisting on treating his wife like a little child who has to jump every time he says so.
She is there to help him.
She is there to be a part of him.
She is there to love him.
And he is there to love and protect her.
That is the ideal relationship in marriage.
We are told here that a wrong relationship between husband and wife will cause us to go nowhere in our Christian experience.
In many a case, the prayers of husbands are hindered because of their failures of duty toward their wives.
On the other hand, it is also doubtless true that the prayers of wives are hindered because of their failure in duty toward their husband.
If husbands and wives should seek diligently to find the cause of their unanswered prayers, they would often find it in their relations to one another.
Many a man who makes a great pretensions to piety, and is very active in Christian work, shows but little consideration in his treatment of his wife, and is oftentimes unkind, if not brutal at what he does and says.
The verse that we have just quoted explains the seeming mystery.
On the other hand, many a woman who is very devoted to the church, and very faithful in attendance upon all services, treats her husband with the most unpardonable neglect, is cross and peevish toward him, wounds him by the sharpness of her speech, and by her ungovernable temper, then wonders why it is that she has no power in her prayer.
There are other things in the relations of husbands and wives which cannot be spoken of publicly, but which doubtless are oftentimes a hindrance in approaching God in prayer.
There is much to be covered up under the holy name of marriage that is a cause of spiritual deadness, and of powerlessness in prayer.
Any man or woman whose prayers seem to bring no answer should spread their whole married life out before God, and ask Him to put His finger upon anything in it that is displeasing in His sight.
Now for the seventh hindrance, let’s turn to, James 1:5-7
5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
“Wisdom” here is related to the trials which James has been talking about.
You and I have troubles and trials and problems.
How are you going to solve this problem?
How are you going to meet this issue?
How are you going to deal with this person?
If you lack wisdom in regard to a problem, you need to go to God in prayer.
Wisdom is the exercise and practical use of knowledge.
Many people have knowledge, but they do not have any practical sense whatsoever.
Even to this day I get a good laugh just thinking about the man with a Ph.D. with whom I used to know.
One day when we were working outside it began to rain, and he looked at me in utter amazement and asked, “What shall we do now?”
Well, you don’t need a Ph.D. to know that you need to get in out of the rain!
I said to him, “I think we’d better seek shelter.”
Wisdom is to know how to act under certain circumstances of testing, of trial, or when problems or questions arise.
Life is filled with these, and you and I need wisdom from God.
“That giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not.”
God is in the business of giving out wisdom “liberally,” that is, simply.
He will just simply help you out in times like that.
If we lack wisdom, let’s go to God who will hear and answer our prayer.
Maybe it is not your problem, but it has been my problem over a great deal of my Christian life that I simply have not believed God.
Don’t misunderstand me—I have trusted Christ as my Savior, and I believe with all my soul that He saved me and is going to save me for heaven.
I believe that with all my heart, but down here in this life, where the rubber meets the road, is where I have had my problems.
“But let him ask in faith nothing wavering.”
Why don’t you believe God, my friend?
Do you as a Christian have a long face today?
Are you wondering how your problems are going to work out?
I know exactly how you feel—I’ve been there.
Why don’t you believe God? Why don’t you trust Him and turn them over to Him?
I know I do not have the brains to meet the problems of life;
I know I am not capable of living in this complex civilization, but I have a heavenly Father who can supply the wisdom that I need.
“For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.”
We say, “I believe God is going to work this out,” but then we jump at it ourselves and make our own decision.
So often I turn a problem over to the Lord and believe Him, but then the next day I do not believe Him.
I decide that nothing has shown up by way of solution, so I will solve it myself.
That’s where I make my mistake. Such a man is “like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.”
If you are going to work out your problem for yourself, then God cannot work it out for you.
Instead of going like a bull into a china closet and trying to work something out, why not turn it over to God?
Prayers are hindered by unbelief.
God demands that we shall believe His Word absolutely.
To question the Word of God makes a liar.
Many of us do that when we plead His promises, and is it any wonder that our prayers are unanswered?
How many prayers are hindered by our wretched unbelief?
We go to God and ask Him for something that is positively promised in His Word, and then we do not but more than half expect to get it.
When you have that kind of thinking you can rest assured that you will not receive anything that you ask God for.
God expects us to ask for things and to believe that we will receive what we ask for.
