Hindrances to Prayer: R. A. Torrey's Seven Reasons, with Scripture
Why doesn't God answer some prayers? R. A. Torrey took up that question in chapter IX of How to Pray, titled "Hindrances to Prayer." He doesn't guess. He goes to the Bible and finds seven things it names as blocking prayer: selfish motives, sin, idols in the heart, stinginess, an unforgiving spirit, a wrong relationship between husband and wife, and unbelief. Each one comes with a verse.
Here they are in his order, with his own words. You can read chapter IX free alongside this page.
1. Asking with a selfish purpose
Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
James 4:3
Torrey says many prayers ask for good things, things God wants to give, but for the wrong reason.
A selfish purpose in prayer robs prayer of power.
How to Pray, chapter IX
His examples are pointed. A wife may pray for her husband's salvation mainly because life would be easier with a believing husband. A church may pray for revival to grow its membership and fill its treasury. A Christian may pray for the Holy Spirit just to be happier or more effective. Torrey's answer is that the first reason for every one of these prayers should be the glory of God. We should want a husband saved because we can't bear for God to be dishonored, and revival because God's Word is being made void.
2. Sin
Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
Isaiah 59:1-2
Sin hinders prayer.
How to Pray, chapter IX
Israel thought God had stopped answering. Isaiah said the problem was on their side. Torrey says the same is true now: it may be an old sin never confessed, or a present one we don't even call sin. His counsel is to pray Psalm 139:23-24, "Search me, O God," and wait until God puts His finger on the thing, then confess it and give it up. He tells of a night when he was praying for two things he badly needed. Nothing came until he admitted something he had long refused to call sin. He found peace, slept, and the needed money came the next morning.
Any one who would have power in prayer must be merciless in dealing with his own sins.
How to Pray, chapter IX
If there is anything that is constantly coming up in your moments of close communion with God, that is the thing that hinders prayer: put it away.
How to Pray, chapter IX
3. Idols in the heart
Torrey's verse here is Ezekiel 14:3, where God asks whether He should be inquired of at all by men who have set up idols in their hearts.
An idol is anything that takes the place of God, anything that is the supreme object of our affection.
How to Pray, chapter IX
He is careful. A man can't love his wife too much, and a mother can't love her children too much. But either can be put ahead of God. So can a reputation or a business. His test is one question:
Is He before wife, before children, before reputation, before business, before our own lives? If not, prevailing prayer is impossible.
How to Pray, chapter IX
He adds that God often uses unanswered prayer to make us look for the idol.
4. Stinginess
Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.
Proverbs 21:13
The generous man is the mighty man of prayer. The stingy man is the powerless man of prayer.
How to Pray, chapter IX
Torrey points out that the great promise of 1 John 3:22, "whatsoever we ask, we receive of him," sits right after John's call to love "in deed and in truth" by helping a brother in need. He holds up George Müller, who gave away what he received as fast as it came. And he notes that Philippians 4:19, "my God shall supply all your need," was written to a church that had just given generously to Paul.
5. An unforgiving spirit
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.
Mark 11:25
An unforgiving spirit is one of the commonest hindrances to prayer.
How to Pray, chapter IX
Prayer is answered because our sins are forgiven, Torrey reasons, and God can't deal with us on the ground of forgiveness while we refuse to forgive. He doesn't soften it:
Any one who is nursing a grudge against another has fast closed the ear of God against his own petition.
How to Pray, chapter IX
Many parents, he says, pray for their children's salvation and wonder why nothing happens, when the hindrance is a grudge they're holding.
6. A wrong relationship between husband and wife
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.
1 Peter 3:7
Here Peter says it outright: how a husband treats his wife can hinder his prayers. Torrey applies it both ways. A man active in Christian work may be unkind at home. A woman faithful at every church service may be cross and cutting with her husband. Both then wonder why prayer has no power.
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.
How to Pray, chapter IX
His counsel: spread the whole married life out before God and ask Him to show anything displeasing in it.
7. Unbelief
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. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
James 1:6-7
Prayers are hindered by unbelief. God demands that we shall believe His Word absolutely.
How to Pray, chapter IX
We ask for something God has plainly promised, Torrey says, and then only half expect it. In chapter V he explains where faith comes from: not from trying hard to believe, but from a promise in the Word or the clear leading of the Spirit. "Faith must have a warrant."
Hindrances and conditions
Chapter IX is the flip side of the chapters before it. In chapters II through VIII Torrey lays out what prevailing prayer looks like: prayer offered to God with real earnestness, by people who obey Him, in Jesus' name, according to God's will, in the Spirit, with faith, perseverance, the Word abiding in us, and thanksgiving. The hindrances are mostly those same conditions turned inside out. For a walk through every chapter, see the summary of How to Pray. For more of his lines, see R. A. Torrey's quotes on prayer.
Using this list
Torrey's point is not to make anyone anxious. It's to send us to God with an honest heart. A simple way to use the chapter:
- Read chapter IX slowly with your Bible open to the seven verses.
- Pray Psalm 139:23-24 and wait.
- Deal with whatever God shows you: confess the sin, put away the idol, give, forgive, make things right at home.
- Go back to the promises and pray again, expecting an answer.
Torrey wrote as a man who had tested this himself, and you can learn more about him in Who Was R. A. Torrey? The whole of How to Pray is free to read.