Hindrances to prayer are explored, beginning with the possibility of no spiritual life, where unsaved individuals may not have their prayers answered because they have not truly trusted Christ. Prayers can also be hindered by wrong reasons, such as seeking to be seen by others or trusting in oneself, and by insincerity, evidenced by a lack of felt need or a failure to be persistent. Laziness, following a mere form, having unclean hands, and a lack of confidence or obedience can also impede prayer. Furthermore, prayers may not be answered due to unmet conditions like not praying in the Spirit, not praying in Jesus' name, praying against God's will, or not being obedient. Finally, the timing of answers can be affected by God's eternal perspective, Satan's interference, or divine purposes to strengthen, teach patience, correct, or for reasons unknown to us.
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This is our last study on prayer, and we shall consider hindrances to prayer. Number one, there may be no spiritual life. I don't know how many times people have told me that they just don't, the prayers just don't get answered. When I've investigated, they found out they didn't even know the Lord. What they really needed was not to get prayers answered, but to to be born again. He needed to come to the Lord. Now, number one, the prayers of unsaved persons. A, the blind man in John nine said God does not hear the prayers of sinners.
Now, whenever you read the statement in Scripture, you want to consider who said it you know there are some lies in the bible one of them's in the third chapter of genesis where the devil said if you eat of this fruit you shall not surely die now that's in the bible and it's a lie this is a lie that satan told the record is accurate but the but the but the statement was not right and uh When this blind man said this to the Pharisees, he was merely quoting from their own writings, this is what the Pharisees claimed, that God does not hear sinners.
In fact, three times the blind man threw right back at these Pharisee leaders things that they taught themselves. That's why they were so mad at him and put him out of the synagogue. It wasn't that they objected to his getting his eyesight back, but they certainly didn't like the way he caught them up on their teaching. Now, B, God did hear, and I've just chosen two cases, Ishmael and Manasseh. Ishmael's case is in Genesis twenty-one. And Manasseh's case is recorded in Second Chronicles thirty-three.
Manasseh was this very wicked king that we talked about a while ago. At the close of his life, he repented of his wickedness and turned to God, and God did hear him. And he heard him when he was still an unbeliever. And Ishmael, you know, was the son of Abraham. by the slave girl, Hagar, whom they had brought up out of Egypt, and he became the head of the Arab nations. And he certainly was not one who knew God, but God heard his cry.
But see, God only promised to hear the righteous. In Psalm three four, it says, the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. So God did not promise to hear the prayers of unconverted people. He may do so, and he does do so, but they have no right to claim it. That's the point that I want to make. And if you're not getting answers to your prayers, it could be that you have not really trusted Christ as your Savior, and you have no claim on God.
He isn't your Father. If the neighbor's kids come around and ask me for things, they don't necessarily get them. My own children did. Now, second, they are often for wrong reasons. The prayers of unsaid people are often for wrong reasons, A, to be seen of men. You'll recall that the Lord Jesus said in Matthew six in the Sermon on the Mount that these people made long prayers standing on street corners just to be seen of men.
They did the same thing when they fasted. They made themselves to look like they were suffering horribly from lack of food. little makeup, you know, would make them look like they were really gaunt and just to appear to be spiritual. And many times the prayers of non-Christians are for wrong reasons. Now, B, because they trust in themselves. The Eighteenth of Luke describes a man. He also was a Pharisee. The Pharisee and publican went up into the temple to pray, and it said, The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. That gives you a pretty good idea what kind of a prayer he had.
He prayed with himself. And then he prayed looking around to see that he had a good audience because in saying, oh God, I thank thee that I'm not as other men, not even as this publican standing here. So he knew the man was standing there. and see because of self-will. Now, in Proverbs fifteen, it says, the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination unto the Lord, but the prayer of the righteous is his delight. Now, the prayer of the wicked simply means the self-will people who wanted their own way And we're demanding these things without having any right to them.
Now, having eliminated that, let's get down to where we stand. You profess to be a believer. You might have some problems about prayer too. What are the hindrances? All right, the second section, there may be insincerity. One, believers may have no felt need. Now you can't say they have no need. We all have needs. And we always have needs. But sometimes people don't realize their needs. So that's why I worded it that way.
Believers may have no felt need. A, the Laodiceans. They said we have need of nothing. We mentioned that in the other lesson, Revelation three, seventeen. We are rich in increase with goods and in need of nothing. Now what sense is it to pray if that's the kind of an attitude that a person has? A prayer is just a farce. It's just insincerity if you really don't recognize a need. And B, we don't cry day and night, as in Luke eighteen.
perhaps you remember the case of the of the importunate widow who came to the unjust judge and she kept asking and kept asking and he said shall not your father avenge those who cry unto him day and night let me tell you something brothers if you if your prayers are not sincere enough to make you go back more than once, you probably don't need it very badly. I can remember many times when youngsters asked me for things in the third of a century that I spent with the children's home, that I just waited to see if they needed it badly enough to come back and ask me again.
Because usually it was just a whim, just a passing fancy. And then see We don't cast. Now, I know that there are many people who object to teaching about fasting, but if you understand what fasting is, you will see that every Christian who prays sincerely will also fast. This doesn't necessarily mean that it will without food. In Acts thirteen and verses two and three, It probably was going without food and perhaps without rest. The elders prayed with fasting about Paul and Barnabas going out as missionaries in strange countries.
Nobody had ever done this before. The only man who had ever done it in the Old Testament was Jonah. He didn't do so well. And they were a little bothered about this. They were not accustomed. They were Jewish people. They were not accustomed to this idea of going out among the Gentiles. They didn't really understand the whole thing. And so there was real sincerity in their prayers. But in First Corinthians seven and verse five, he talks about husbands and wives abstaining from marital relationships so that they can give themselves to prayer. So you see, this is a different type of fasting. For instance, Christians who know that they're going to have responsibilities on the Lord's Day might see best that they do not have marital relations Saturday night, which might leave them tired or feeling not quite up to par.
for the Lord's Day. Now this is abstinence from things which are perfectly right and legitimate because some things are more important. That's what fasting means. It means putting God's things ahead of everything else, whether it's food or rest or anything else, which is perfectly right and good in its place, but I must not let these things crowd out the best. That's a pretty good test of your sincerity in prayer. And then, second, we may be lazy. You might have a Latin name for that, but the truth of the matter is, it's just plain laziness.
We don't watch, Ephesians six and verse eighteen says, watching there and to with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. When you pray, do you go back and check to see whether God answered your prayers or not? Do you keep any kind of a list of the things that you prayed for? Or do you just pray haphazardly when it happens to come to your mind? And then you don't mention it again for a long while, if ever. And then B, we get sleepy. Remember Luke twenty-two? The disciples went to sleep.
right there in the garden of Gethsemane while our blessed Lord was suffering and sweating great drops of blood falling down to the ground. They went to sleep. And the Lord came to him and said, what could you not watch one hour with me? And see, our minds wander. Do you have this problem? Well, there's a good answer to that. In Luke eleven and two, the Lord Jesus said, when you pray, say our Father. Now, if you have this problem of getting sleepy when you pray and you're mind-wandering, I can tell you how you can cure the whole thing with one very simple recipe.
You simply walk while you pray and you pray aloud. You can't go sleep walking. Well, it would be pretty hard to do anyway. And your mind isn't going to wander if you're praying aloud. Now, you can do this in your own room. If you've got a room of your own, you can shut the door. You don't have to pray loudly. I said aloud. That's simply verbalizing, saying words. You may say it softly, but what do you say or think? Of course, God can hear it. But if you're trying to help yourself not to go to sleep and not to let your mind wander, This is a good thing, good way to do it. Just walk back and forth across the room.
After all, there's no religious position for your body in prayer. David prayed sitting on a chair. Some men prayed lying in their bed. Some prayed lying on the ground face down. Some prayed standing. Some prayed walking. Some prayed kneeling. There's no wrong way to pray. And I found the easiest, the best way for me to pray is walking. I like to get out and go for a walk where there won't be any people. This gives me a wonderful opportunity to have fellowship with God. Now, three, we may be following a form.
Matthew six and seven says, use not vain repetitions as do the heathen. If you're just reciting your little prayers that you always recite, my friend Alf Gibbs says you might as well have them framed and hang them over your bed and just wave at them as you get into bed. Say, then is my sentence. Now, this may be a church-prescribed prayers or be habitual cliches. Don't tell me you don't have them. It's so easy to get into a rut in prayer. And then forth, we may now have clean hands.
First Timothy, two eight says, I will let the men, and that's the word amir, which means the males. Women are not to pray in the meeting of the church. It's totally unscriptural. men. He said, I will therefore that the males, the men, pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands. That means that they're clean. That means that they're not allowing sin in their lives. First John chapter three says that you will have confidence toward God if your life is clean and like it ought to be. And then he says to do it without wrath and doubting.
When George Mueller was crossing the Atlantic one time coming to this country, the boat suddenly stopped. They were just a few hours out of the dock, out of the harbor, and he went to the captain, who was a Christian friend of his, and he said, Captain, why are we stopped? Well, he said, look outside. It's the fog. We don't dare to go. It's a heavy fog. We just can't see. It's unsafe. We're getting into where there's a lot of traffic. Well, he said, let's get on our knees and pray that God will lift this fog because he said, I've got a meeting there tonight and I have to be there. I promised those people and I prayed about it.
I believe God wants me to be there for that meeting. He said, Mr. Mueller, I've never seen a fog lift that quickly. That's as heavy as this. Well, he said, let's pray. So they kneeled down to pray and George Mueller prayed very simply that God would lift that fog. And when he finished praying, the captain kind of lamely tried to say a little prayer, and George Mueller just stopped him. He said, stop, Captain. In the first place, you don't believe that it's going to happen. And in the second place, I believe it's already happened. Let's look out and see. There was no window in the captain's cabin. But they went to the door and opened and looked out, and the fog was already high enough that they could see out under it, and they got the motor started, and got going.
If you're going to pray, you've got to pray without sin in your life, you've got to pray without wrath, you've got to pray without doubting. It's all in that one verse, First Timothy, two, eight. And then section three, there may be unmet conditions. Now you'll recall that we went over some of these conditions. I'm saying them negatively now. One, not praying in the Spirit. remember what Jude twenty said praying in the Holy Ghost in Ephesians four thirty says grieve not the Holy Spirit of God now if the Holy Spirit is grieve you can't pray in the Spirit this may be what's wrong is your prayer number two not in the name of the Lord Jesus in John sixteen twenty three and twenty four he said I don't say that you shall ask me, you ask the Father in my name, and he'll do it.
How does it mean to pray in his name? A? Identified with him. It isn't just tacking on for Jesus' sake or in the name of the Lord Jesus. That isn't praying in his name. Praying in his name is coming in his, as though you were he, coming in his authority, coming in his person. coming in His acceptance. And so, B, I put in His merits. See, I don't have any right to ask anything of God. The Lord Jesus has a right to ask anything He wishes, and He's allowed me to come through His merits.
That's how He gets saved, isn't He? That's how He became children of God. The Lord isn't going to take you to heaven because you're so wonderful and irresistible, and he just couldn't help but love you and he wants you there. He did so because you came through the merits, through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, we do the same thing in prayer. And then, see, not for private advantage, but for his glory. That's what it means to pray in his name. If you're doing it in His name, you know, if I do something in the name of a company or in the name of a person who sends me, then I do it for His interests, not for my own.
Now, number three, it may not be according to God's will. First John five, fourteen and fifteen, says if we ask anything according to His will, we know that He heareth us. And if we know that he hears us, we know that we have the petition we desired of him. It's actually possible to thank God ahead of time for what you know he's going to grant because you know it's his will. Now how may we know, A, we may know his will through his word. The better acquainted you are with the word of God, the more sure you will be what the will of God is.
And B, we ought not to pray for what is forbidden in the word. While some of you young fellows are not married, suppose that you become attracted to a non-Christian girl and you think you'd like to have her for your wife. Can you go to God and ask him to help you to win her for your wife? Of course not. If you're going to pray about that at all, you ought to confess that this is a sin. You can't ask for that. You know it's contrary to the Word of God. And there are many other things, too.
The more familiar you are with Scripture, the more sure you will be that some things are not to be prayed for at all. They're wrong. Now, number four, we may not be obedient. I've already mentioned First Timothy, two and eight, lifting up holy hands. And in First John three, twenty-one to twenty-four, this is B, this summary, it says, because we keep his commandments, because we keep his commandments.
Now, lest you think that this means the Ten Commandments, read the passage, and you'll see that the commandments that the Lord gives us are not grievous. You can't say that for the Ten Commandments. This is a different thing. We're not under the law now, but under grace. But the Lord has given us certain commandments. And if you're not keeping His commandments, you're not doing what He asked you to do. This may be the reason why your prayers are not answered. And fifth, not confident that he will do it. A, Hebrews eleven, six says, without faith, it's impossible to please God.
So it may be without faith. And B, in Matthew twenty-one, twenty-two, he says, whatsoever you ask, in prayer, believing, it shall be done for you. What's the point in praying if you don't believe? The old lady looked out at a mountain that was shutting the sun off from her house. And she remembered the Lord had said, if you pray, that a mountain be removed as well. And so she prayed that the Lord would take that mountain away. The next morning she looked out and said, well, the mountain's still there. It is as I expected. I was kind of going through a ceremony to pray a prayer like that.
She didn't expect anything to happen. was no faith. And C, James one, six and eight says, let him ask in faith nothing wavering. And then he says he that wavered is like a wave of the sea. Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. So nothing wavering means that we're not to be yes and no about this thing. Either we believe God or we don't believe him. Do we believe him? to believe him, let's count on him. And sixth, we may not be persistent. I've given you two scriptures for this.
Luke eighteen and one says men are always to pray and not to faint. That word faint is an interesting word. It means literally to cave in. Ever feel like that? Men are always to pray and not to cave in. And First Thessalonians five and seventeen is a very short verse, three words. Pray without ceasing. So stick with it. And seventh, it may not be for the glory of God. Second Corinthians one and twenty says that the promises of God are yea and amin unto the glory of God by a When you claim God's promises, claim them for His glory, not just for your own selfish will.
And the last section, there may be the problem of time. Now one, God does not compute time as we do. A, Isaiah fifty-seven, fifteen says, He inhabits eternity. Now there are no clocks and calendars in eternity. Clocks and calendars are for dividing up time here on this earth. The revolutions of the earth and the revolution of the earth around the sun determine our days and years. And we subdivide those days into hours and into minutes and seconds.
And it doesn't mean a thing to God. You think you waved at a long time, but you're talking about time. Now, B, we're told that a thousand years is as a day. Also, we're told a day is as a thousand years. So it doesn't mean that every thousand years is one day on God's calendar. It just simply means that time doesn't count either way. Now, this is... from Psalm ninety and is quoted in Second Peter three in verse eight. Now see, delay does not indicate slackness.
This word slack at Second Peter three nine. The Lord is not slack concerning his promises. Means the Lord is not indifferent or careless. But he says he is long suffering to us, we're to believe not willing that any should perish. That accounts for the long delay in the return of Christ. What seems to us like a delay. But of course, two thousand years is only a day before yesterday. Thousand years to a day. You see, it isn't really long time at all. It's not slackness. It's not indifference. It's long suffering, waiting for souls to be saved.
And second, seeming delays may be caused by Satan's. And I've referred you back to Daniel ten. You want to study that passage very carefully. A. He hinders. First Thessalonians, two, eighteen said, We would have come to you, but Satan hindered us. Now, B, Satan is limited. Satan is limited. He could not attack Peter until the Lord Jesus gave him leave until he allowed him to do so.
You don't need to be afraid of Satan. Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. and we have all the armor that we need to resist it. There is no armor for the back, incidentally, in the six chapters of Ephesians, but there's all the armor that we need to protect us. And third, answers to prayer may be delayed by our Father. Now, if there is the delay, Don't say that Satan is doing this until you find out, eh, it may be to strengthen us.
Isaiah forty in verse thirteen says, They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Athletes do all kinds of strenuous things and go much beyond the strength that they think they have in order to increase their strength. be, it may be for patience. Romans eight and twenty-five. What a man sees, why did he yet hope for? But if we hope for it, then do we with patience wait for it? How else are you going to learn patience? You can't read about it in a book and learn it.
You've got to learn patience by tribulation, by delays, by difficulties. And see, It may be to correct us. Wasn't that in the land? The only thing is he had to wait fifteen hundred years. Do you think you waited a long time for a prayer? Remember that. Moses prayed that he would get into the land.
And God said, he didn't say, you're not going to get into the land. He said, don't speak to me anymore of this matter. So Moses said, all right. And Moses died, and God himself buried him. And then years later, centuries later, The Lord Jesus allowed Moses to meet him, he and Elijah, met him there on the Mount of Transfiguration. Peter, James, and John saw them. Now, Moses needed to be corrected. Maybe God is delaying your prayer just in order to correct you. And then D, it may be for reasons totally unknown to us.
The book of Habakkuk I referred to here, the first chapter is a burden, second chapter is a vision, and the last chapter is a Psalm. Now, Habakkuk didn't know why God was doing some things. He never did find out, but he learned to trust God and he ended up with a Psalm.