Bear in mind that if we are contemplating wickedness in our hearts, or living on a mere empty profession, we have no claim to expect our prayers will be answered.
There is not one solitary promise for us. I sometimes tremble when I hear people quote promises and say God is bound to fulfill those promises to them, when all the time there is something in their own lives which they are not willing to give up.
It is well for us to search our hearts and find out why it is that our prayers are not answered. The first chapter of Isaiah is a solemn passage:
Hear the word of the Lord, ye princes of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? shall the Lord say.
I am full of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; and I do not delight in the blood of bullocks or of lambs or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who has required this at your hand, to tread my courts?
Bring no more vain oblations; the incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot stand them; iniquity and the solemn meeting. (Isaiah 1:10-13)
The King James Version says, it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Even our pious gatherings! Think of that.
If God does not get our heart service, he will have none of it; it is an abomination to him.
Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.
And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; likewise, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear; your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek judgment; restore unto the oppressed; hear the fatherless in right judgment; protect the widow.
Then come, shall the Lord say, and we shall be even; if your sins were as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow; if they were red like crimson, they shall become as wool. (Isaiah 1:14-18)
Think of this! He that turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination (Proverbs 28:9).
It may shock some of us to think our prayers are an abomination to God, yet if any are living in known sin, this is what God’s Word says about them. If we are not willing to turn from sin and obey God’s law, we have no right to expect that he will answer our prayers.
Unconfessed sin is unforgiven sin, and unforgiven sin is the darkest, foulest thing on this sin-cursed earth.
You cannot find a case in the Bible where a man has been honest in dealing with sin, where God has not also been honest with him and blessed him. The prayer of the humble and the contrite heart is a delight to God.
There is no sound that goes up from this sin-cursed earth so sweet to his ear as the prayer of the man who does what is right.
Dwight L. Moody
Dwight Lyman Moody (February 5, 1837 – December 26, 1899), also known as D. L. Moody, was an American evangelist and publisher connected with Keswickianism, who founded the Moody Church, Northfield School and Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts.
