DON’T BLOCK THE LINE 

I PETER 3:1-7

          In this passage of scripture Peter discusses the relationship between a husband and wife.  Though that is an important topic, it is not the subject that we are going to look at today.  We have been talking about prayer for several weeks in Bible study.  There we said that a classical definition of Christian prayer is “an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies”.  We said that through prayer man can interact and fellowship with the eternal creator, the unseen and most Holy God.  The power and supreme force of the universe interacts with man through prayer.  It is the channel of blessings, and the secret of power and abundant life.  Verse 7 says, “Likewise, ye husbands dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. 1 Peter 3:7”. Since prayer is our way of communicating with God, I want to use as a title this morning “Don’t Block the Line”.

          In verse 7, Paul makes mention of our prayers being hindered.  Since prayer is the means by which we communicate with God, a prayer being hindered is equivalent to the phone line being blocked up and our having an inability to get a prayer through to God and to receive an answer back from Him.   In other words for some reason the call has be interrupted and now we can only hear the dial tone.  Our words are dangling somewhere out in space and so is God’s reply to us.  The phone line is blocked.  Our prayers have been hindered from reaching God and his answer has been hindered from reaching us.

          Just so that you will know that our prayers can be hindered turn to

DANIEL 10:7-14

          Daniel had been given a vision by God.  Because he did not understand the vision he went on a fast for 3 week seeking an interpretation from God.  Finally an angel appeared to him and explained to him that God had released him to bring the interpretation to Daniel as soon as Daniel had requested to know it.  However, a demonic spirit had detained him, hindering him from delivering the answer to Daniel.  Finally the Lord had to send Michael, a more powerful angel into the battle to help get the answer delivered.  You see Daniel’s prayer reached God but God’s answer was delayed in reaching Daniel.  It took the angel 21 days to free himself from the battle and deliver the answer and still he was only able to free himself when he got help from Michael.  The line, the communication between God and Daniel was blocked. 

          There is no indication that Daniel did anything to cause this blockage.  It was just an attack of the enemy to hinder Daniel from receiving from God.  This is probably the case for many of the communications breakdowns between God and man.  The enemy does not want us to communicate with God nor does he want God to communicate with us.  This appears to be a blockage that was not prompted or motivated by Daniel’s actions.  However, in verse 7 of I Peter 3, Peter explains how husbands and wives are to live together so that their prayers will not be hindered.  In other words there are things we can do that can cause our prayers to hindered, or the line of communication between God and us to be blocked.  I want to briefly mention 5 things that will potentially block the line of communication between us and God. 

1.     Our prayers can be hindered by unharmonious relationships (I Peter 3:7) 

Though this verse talks about husbands and wives I believe it can be expanded to include all relationships.  As Christians we are commanded to love one another, serve one another and build each other up.  If we in any relationship do not show the love of God, seeking to serve and strengthen the other then the relationship is no better than that of a husband and wife in an unharmonious relationship.

PROVERBS 13:10

Peter said live with her according to wisdom.  In a relationship we have to get to know one another so that there will not be lots of contention and strife.  This verse says that when our pride enters into the picture it brings with it contention and strife.  Every body hates to be wrong and even when we recognize that we are wrong it is often the hardest thing to admit.  Our pride gets in the way and we just feel like we have to have the last word.  If there is going to be a minimum of contention and strife, we must purge ourselves of pride and go to God to seek wisdom and advice in how to maintain harmonious relationships.

PROVERBS 15:18

          When we are angry we start argument and use our anger to keep the argument going.  Long after the verbal arguing is over, we will still be carrying a mental argument with ourselves.  We think up all the things that we should have said or done and keep the argument going.  The person who is slow to anger will try to defuse the situation and cut down on strife.  Sometimes you can not get an angry woman to calm down.  Proverbs 21:19 says, “It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman.”  In other words it is better to live in a jungle alone that live with an angry argumentative woman.  When you can’t get the situation defused, maybe someone should see a wilderness, a place away from the heated situation, allowing the anger to subside.

PROVERBS 25:8

          Don’t be in such a hurry to start a quarrel because we will often say and do things we will be sorry for later.  When the argument is over, we then have to figure out how to repair the relationship.  We are sorry for the harsh words, but there is no immediate way to lessen the impact of those words.  We are ashamed because we have hurt others and there is no way to fix it.

          When we don’t seek harmony in our relationship we open a doorway to the enemy to stand between us and God, hindering communication between us and God. We block the line and hinder our prayers.  Peter says operate wisely in relationships so that your prayers will not be hindered.

2.     Our prayers can be hindered by selfishness.  (JAMES 4:3)

James says here that sometimes we don’t get answers to our prayers because we ask with the wrong motive.  We talked this week in Bible study about the importance of seeking, knowing and praying in accordance with the will of God.  This will keep us from selfishly going to God focusing our prayer on what we want rather than what he wants.

3.     Our prayers can be hindered by us having an unforgiving spirit (MATTHEW6:14-15)

Jesus taught his disciples much on forgiveness.  Here he says that if we will not forgive others then God will not forgive us.  In other words even our prayers of forgiveness can be blocked by our having an unforgiving spirit.  In Matthew 7:2 he tells us that the same measure that we use to handout judgment and withhold forgiveness will be used when we are to be judged or stand in need of forgiveness.  Harboring an unforgiving spirit towards others is evidence of the presence of pride and a haughty spirit. 

ROMANS 2:1

In order not to forgive others we must think of ourselves as one who never makes mistakes and who never hurts others.  To be unforgiving is to be one who readily sees fault in others but can not clearly see faults in ourselves.  James 4:6 says, “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble”.  When we in our pride see ourselves as more than we are, we disrupt communications between us and God causing him to stand against (or resist) us.  We thus block the line of communication.

4.     Our prayers can be hindered by unbelief  (JAMES 1:5-8)

As we talked about on Wednesday night at Bible study, it is important to know the will of God in any situation or area we are praying about.  When we know the will of God, we can pray in accordance with the will of God and have confidence that he not only hears us, but will also answer us.  However, when we don’t know the will of God it is sometimes hard not to wonder if our petition will be granted.  Hebrews 11:6 says that without faith we cannot please God and that we must believe that he rewards those who diligently seek him.  When we doubt and waver in our faith James says we should not think that we will receive anything from the Lord.  Doubt will block our communication with God and hinder our prayers.  Recorded in Psalms 78:19-21 is an incident where the Children of Israel doubted God’s ability to feed them meat when they were coming out of Egypt.  God got so mad at their unbelief that he sent a fire to consume them.  God told the Children of Israel in Isaiah 7:9 “If you will not believe, surely you will not be established.”  Finally in Matthew 17, the disciples were unable to heal because they doubted.  The Old Testament is full of examples where people believed God, stepped out in faith and received the promise of God.  However, keep in mind that in those instances the person either had a Rhema word from God, or had the written law of God to stand on and thus they knew the will of God.  Unbelief will hinder our prayers.  But true faith must be based on the will of God for our lives.

5.     Our prayers can be hindered by having known sin in our hearts (PSALMS 66:18)

If we hold on to sin, David said that God would not hear us.

ISAIAH 59:2

          When we sin we break fellowship with God and stand at risk of having him choose not to acknowledge our prayers. 1 Peter 3:12 says, “the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.”  To turn one’s face is to ignore someone.  God has reserved the right to ignore the prayer of the evil doer.  But He promises to hear the prayer of the one who is righteous. Sin separates us from God, blocks the prayer line and causes our prayers to be hindered. 

These are just a few of the obstacles that stand in the way of a successful prayer life.  As endeavor to improve your prayer life, ask God if there are hindrances that are blocking your line of communication with him.  Then set as your goal, not to block the line, but rather to establish an open communication channel to God through prayer.