Text: Proverbs 28:9 (ESV)

9 If one turns away his ear from hearing the law,

even his prayer is an abomination.

PRAYER AND THE LAW

One of the more common wrong view of God is that He is as a vending machine, or a genie. They will ignore His laws and commands but He is still expected to hear and grant their prayer requests. God despises this attitude, both when attached to prayer and to sacrifice. “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is acceptable to him. The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but he loves him who pursues righteousness.” (Prov 15:8,9).

The term used for His reaction comes from the Hebrew word which implies deep disgust and loathing. When someone has no concern for God's will, or obedience, or repentance, their attempts to "play religious" are met with the equivalent of divine nausea. Even a "good deed" is a sin when it's done out of insincere motives.

God is sovereign. He has the right to respond to anyone's prayer in any way He chooses. He may respond to an appeal from a non-believer as a means of calling or His working for them to faith. However, those who reject God have no valid reason to expect positive answers to their prayers. Scripture makes it clear that sin and disbelief are barriers to His cooperation.[Isa 59:2] The psalmist understood that sin builds a barrier between prayer and a positive response from God. Psalm 66:18 says, "If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened." The man born blind who was healed by Jesus told the Pharisees, "We know that God does not listen to sinners" (John 9:31 ).

Jesus strongly denounced the Pharisees because of their hypocrisy. He told the story of a Pharisee and a tax collector. Both entered the temple to pray. The tax collector who humbly admitted he was a sinner and asked God to be merciful to him went home justified by God. But, the self-righteous Pharisee who saw others as sinful but himself as righteous was not heard by God. (see Luke 18:9–14).

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