In Isaiah, chapter fifty-nine, verses one through eight, to highlight some of these scriptures, “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. None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.”
Sin and wickedness in our lives will put a wall between believers and God. Because of this carrier, we can no longer experience the blessings of salvation, such as God’s favour and protection. Therefore, prayers cannot be answered as in Psalm sixty-six, verse eighteen. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”
If our prayers are not answered, and the salvation we wait for is not wrought for us, it is not because God is weary of hearing prayer, but because we are weary of praying. See here sin in true colours, exceedingly sinful; and see sin in its consequences, exceedingly hurtful, separating from God, and so separating us, not only from all good, but to all evil. Yet numbers feed, to their own destruction, on infidel and wicked systems. Nor can their skill or craft, in devising schemes, deliver or save them. No schemes of self-wrought salvation shall avail those who despise the Redeemer’s robe of righteousness. Every man who is destitute of the Spirit of Christ runs swiftly to evil of some sort. But those, regardless of Divine truth and justice, are strangers to peace.