I recently read an informative little devotional on prayer published in 1900, How to Pray by R.A. Torrey. In Chapter 9 of that volume, Torrey discusses “Hindrances to Prayer” and strikes upon an issue of high importance that really got me thinking. In fact, this idea became the focus of deep conversations with my Young Adults Group about whether or not Christians can experience “hindered prayers.”
This essay is not a sermon, and it doesn’t deal with all the pertinent passages (like the obvious phrasing in 1Peter 3:7 about hindered prayers!), but I hope it does shed light on the theological pitfalls at play when we discuss hindered prayers, especially when blaming this phenomenon on “sin between me and God.” I’d love to hear your thoughts, but first consider the following.
A Difficult Verse, Psalm 66:18
In Chapter 9 of How to Pray, Torrey deals with hindrances to prayer, suggesting that God won’t hear our prayers unless we first confess our sins in prayer to Him. He bases this common viewpoint on Psalm 66:18, which in the KJV says:
“If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”
The ESV renders it differently with verb tenses that (to me) make a whole lot more sense theologically:
“If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.”
No matter the translation you use (and whether or not you think the words “hear” and “listen” are the problem), I believe this verse poses a problem for the Spirit-filled, redeemed child of God. In particular, I believe there are some serious theological issues at stake when we misappropriate Old Testament verses for the New Testament believer, as if any verse can be yanked from its context and applied to the Christian life simply because it’s God’s Word, sitting there in black and white.
“Unconfessed Sin”
I’ve heard it preached my whole life that we Christians must live in fear of “unconfessed sins” and that we need to make sure we’ve “got a clean slate before God.” Baptist churches that aren’t even Arminian even go so far as to mishandle Paul’s teachings in 1Corinthians 11 to suggest that a Christian who takes Communion without first confessing his sin might be struck down and killed by God because of that sin. This is “reading into the text” (eisegesis) at it’s worst!
If so-called “unconfessed sin” in my life is stopping my relationship with God so that He can’t hear me, won’t listen to me, and won’t even forgive me but will instead judge me, then all those teachings about the sufficiency of the blood of Christ and the sealing of the Holy Spirit are wrong. If sin in my life as a redeemed child of God remains unforgiven, then my born-again soul is still lost, pure and simple: the Gospel has failed me, Jesus’ blood hasn’t cleansed me, the exchange of my sin for his righteousness was temporary, and the Holy Spirit’s guarantee isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Clearly something’s wrong!
The truth is, the Gospel hasn’t failed me. Jesus’ blood has cleansed me. The exchange of my sin for his righteousness is eternal. The Holy Spirit’s guarantee is genuine and dependent upon His promise, not my efforts. Because all of this is true, then we still must absolutely ask: What about the sin I commit as a Christian? Must I confess it? Must I deal with it? Can it hinder my prayers? Can it affect my relationship with God?
A Glorious Verse, 1John 1:9
We spent one whole evening this week discussing these questions with Bibles open. Passages like 1John 1:9, 1Peter 3:7, and Mark 11:25 became important topics of conversation, and of course, with the Truth laid out before us, we came to some true and God-honoring conclusions.
God has forgiven my sins, and yet as long as I’m in this flesh, I still continue to sin. “O wretched man that I am!” But thank God, Jesus the Risen Lord stands at God’s right hand as my Advocate, interceding for me, telling the Father with each wicked strike of my flesh, “I paid for that one. I paid for that one too. Even though he’s done that one again and again and again, I’ve paid for them all.”
Thus, when we come to 1John 1:9 and we read that we’re to confess our sins, we need to understand it through the lens of the redeemed children of God clothed in the righteousness of Jesus:
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
The Apostle John does not write to us here an “if/then” proposition: “if we confess, then God is faithful and just to forgive.” How do we know this? Because the opposite would be damnable heresy: “if we do not confess, then God is unfaithful and unjust to forgive.” Confession is agreement with God, and John here isn’t threatening the believers with “unconfessed sins” but is instead identifying our glorious option as children of God to confess, to agree with God not only about our sins but also about God’s faithfulness, His justice, His forgiveness, and His cleansing! A full study of 1John is worth your time, for in this Epistle, God’s glorious grace is on full display—yet so is our perpetual wickedness, even as fully cleansed, fully redeemed children of God.
Another Look at Psalm 66:18
“If I had cherished sin in heart—clung to it, loved it, refused to get rid of it—the Lord would not have listened to me.”
The Psalmist wrote this prayer long ago, but he didn’t stop with this verse of regret. Read the whole Psalm sometime, but for now look especially at the next two verses:
But truly God has listened; he has attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me! (Psalm 66:19-20)
Wouldn’t it be nice to live without the threat of “unconfessed sins”—threats which go against the very Gospel of Jesus—but instead focus on and praise the Advocate Whose blood has paid it all, even those unconfessed sins? Wouldn’t it be nice simply to agree with God about all of this?
A Veil in My Heart
God absolutely hears our every prayer, Believer! The problem, however, is that sometimes we truly do allow sin (forgiven as it is) to come between us and God. Sin can damage our relationship with the Father, even if it doesn’t damage His relationship with us.
I love the image of the Veil in the Tabernacle/Temple. You know the veil: that thick piece of cloth that once separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the planet, that singular room in which God’s presence would come and dwell, if but for a moment on the Day of Atonement. When Jesus was killed, the earthquake that shook the region did many incredible, marvelous things, but the most marvelous to me—even beyond opening the graves of dead saints!—was that it tore that veil in two! The separation between God and man was destroyed! What a miracle! Can you imagine the High Priest’s astonishment at discovering that the next morning!?
The veil has been removed, and access to God has been opened to humanity once more, provided for us through the blood of the Perfect Lamb of God, once and for all. This is amazing grace! And yet, although we can now come boldly to the throne of grace and find help in time of need, one thing hinders us: when we raise that veil again in our hearts by allowing anything—sin, idols, anything!—between us and God. That original veil kept the people from God’s presence, never the other way around. And it’s the same way with the hand-crafted veil we set up in our hearts: it blocks our view from God, not His view of us.
It’s like this 3yo playing hide-and-seek, covering her eyes and thinking her daddy can’t see her, when in reality he can see it all. When I place anything between me and God, it affects my relationship with Him, yet because of Jesus, it doesn’t affect His relationship with me. I’m just a foolish child, blinded by my own sin and thinking that God has departed or is waiting up there in Heaven with a thunderbolt at the ready. That’s not the Christian God, Friend. Let’s open our eyes and see it!
Conclusion
With all this in mind, I do believe that sin can hinder the prayers of a believer, but I don’t blame God for that reality. Jesus has taken my punishment, and these sins have been paid for. When God sees me, He sees me (unfathomably) as righteous. It’s now my responsibility to agree with Him in that, to agree about my sins and his faithfully-just forgiveness and to live in the joy that He can cleanse me from all unrighteousness. With such a confession, I, like the Psalmist, can praise my Savior this way:
Truly God has listened; he has attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me!
©2023 E.T.