From all sorts of circles, and in all sorts of language comes this statement. Scholarly men who write with wisdom's words, and thoughtless people whose thinking never even pricks the skin of the subject, and all sorts of people in between group themselves together here. And they are right, quite right. The bother is that what they say is not all there is to be said. There is yet more to be said, that is right too, and that changes the final conclusion radically. Partial truth is a very mean sort of lie.
The prayer plan like many another has been much disturbed, and often broken. And one who would be a partner with God up to the limit of his power must understand the things that hinder the prayer plan. There are three sorts of hindrances to prayer. First of all there are things in us that _break off connection_ with God, the source of the changing power. Then there are certain things in us that _delay, or diminish_ the results; that interfere with the full swing of the prayer plan of operations. And then there is a great _outside_ hindrance to be reckoned upon. To-day we want to talk together of the first of these, namely, the hindrances that _break off connections_ between God and His human partner.
Here again there is a division into three. There are three things directly spoken of in the book of God that hinder prayer. One of these is a familiar thing. What a pity that repugnant things may become so familiar as no longer to repel. It is this:--_sin_ hinders prayer. In Isaiah's first chapter God Himself speaking says, "When you stretch out your hands"--the way they prayed, standing with outstretched hands--"I will shut My eyes; when you make many prayers, I will shut My ears."[12] Why? What's the difficulty? These outstretched hands are _soiled!_ They are actually holding their sin-soiled hands up into God's face; and He is compelled to look at the thing most hateful to Him. In the fifty-ninth chapter of this same book,[13] God Himself is talking again. Listen "Behold! the _Lord's_ hand is not shortened: _His_ ear is not heavy." There is no trouble on the _up_ side. God is all right. "But"--listen with both your ears--"your _iniquities_ ... your _sins_ ... your _hands_ ... your _fingers_ ... your _lips_ ... your _tongue_ ..." the slime of sin is oozing over everything! Turn back to that sixty-sixth Psalm[14]--"if I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me." How much more if the sin of the heart get into the hands or the life! And the fact to put down plainly in blackest ink once for all is this--_sin hinders prayer_. There is nothing surprising about this. That we can think the reverse is the surprising thing. Prayer is transacting business with God. Sin is _breaking with God_.