Divine Disgust – The Prayers of the Close-Minded

Divine Disgust – The Prayers of the Close-Minded.

“Enough! How long will you defend the evil-doers? How long will you show kindness to those who do wicked things? You’re here to defend the defenseless, to give justice to the weak and fatherless, to maintain the rights of the oppressed and needy. Your job is to rescue the powerless and stand up for them, to deliver them from all who exploit them!” (Psalm 82:2-4).

As we continue to grow in our relationship with God, we discover that we yearn to progress in loving what God loves and hating what God hates.  If we are not growing in those two areas of God’s character, it’s doubtful we even have a relationship with God to begin with. Following the example of Jesus in the gospels, loving the sinner while hating the sin itself is crucial to our growing in the character of the Lord. If God finds certain behavior morally disgusting, but we find it acceptable, then we are not where we should be. It might be surprising to realize that God can have hate in His heart. We know that God is full of love, that He is in fact Love. But hate? That is a difficult concept to digest. But think about it more, and it starts to make sense. Like the Father He is, God loves us so much that He hates whatever might be destructive to us, whatever might come to harm us or our relationship to Him. God’s hatred for evil comes out of His eternal protective instinct. Another thing to think about… God is purely righteous, virtuous, filled with goodness through and through. Out of His goodness, He established a moral universe. Since the profoundly tragic fall of mankind, the overall moral universe remains, but immorality has to be dealt with and judged. Because of the way God created the world, there are rights and wrongs, the moral and immoral, the righteous and the unrighteous. God hates the wrongs. It’s no wonder the early Christians called them the ”deadly sins.” God wants to give us life, the evil one wants to give us death. God hates whatever might be deadly to us. God hates whatever in the world was not a part of His righteous plan for the world. Simply put, God’s hate comes out of His righteous love for us and His world. Yes, God hates. But He hates whatever is worth hating. God speaks plainly in His Word about what He loves and what He hates, about what God embraces and what He rejects. The category entitled “Divine Disgust” is intended to be a biblical catalogue of what God hates, what God finds abominable. Naturally, as we are becoming aware of what God hates, we will also learn what God loves. The truth is, if we are being transformed into the likeness of Jesus and thus the character of God, we show our fearful love of God by joining Him in hating what is evil. (Proverbs 8:13).

ABOMINATION: (Hebrew, “towebah”) = An activity that God considers morally disgusting; a detestable behavior; any action or attitude that is loathed with a passion by God; behavior that God has judged as spiritually abhorrent and unacceptable; something that God hates and finds deeply repugnant; something that is deeply offensive to God’s sensibilities; any action or attitude that God thinks is repulsive, revolting and utterly alien to God’s nature.

“If anyone turns a deaf ear to my Word, even his prayer is an abomination.” (Proverbs 28:9).

God Hates the Prayers of … Arrogance. Stubbornness. Pride. Entitlement. Self-Sufficiency. Laziness. These are just a few of the character qualities of those who refuse to crack open the Scripture, who deliberately ignore God’s Word, and still demand an audience with the Almighty God. When that person continues to turn away from the Bible, his heart is far from God, and God ends up despising those prayers.

IN OTHER WORDS, Part 1 (from various versions of the Bible):

1. “God detests the prayers of a person who ignores His teaching.” (NLT);
2. “God has no use for the prayers of the people who won’t listen to Him.’ (MSG);
3. “As for the person whose ear is turned away from Torah, even his prayer is disgusting to God.” (BBG);
4. “If you do not obey God’s Word, He will find your prayers too hateful to hear” (Good News);
5. “If you don’t pay attention to Scripture, even your prayers are hated by God.’ (NIR);
6. “If you refuse to obey what you have been taught by the Bible, your prayers will not be heard.” (NCV);
7. “His prayer shall be cursed, who turneth away his ear, so that he hears not the law.”(Wycliffe);

IN OTHER WORDS, Part 2 (random paraphrases from Steve Larson):

1. God hates the empty prayers of anyone who can’t be bothered to learn from His Word;
2. God despises the prayers of the foolish person who thinks he can talk to God any time he wants, but all the while closes his mind to listen to God in His Word;
3. The prayers of the person who thinks he is entitled to bend the ear of the Father without bending his own ear to Scripture are truly revolting to God;
4. The prayers of the person who presumes an audience with God without humbly joining the audience of the Word are despised by God;
5. God is disgusted with the self-deluded prayers of those who ignore Scripture and yet demand God’s attention;
6. Whoever closes his mind to God’s instruction makes his own prayers despicable to God;
7. Whoever thinks he can get God on ZOOM whenever he wants will find himself without reception;
8. How can you demand that God listen to you when you refuse to listen to Him? Your prayers are abominable to God;
9. Without receiving the wisdom and knowledge of God’s Word, your prayers are empty and meaningless, and are considered rubbish by God;
10. For those who only think to pray on Christmas or Easter, and can’t be bothered to pray except when in trouble, and yet who has an unused Bible collecting dust on the shelf… Guess what, God despises your prayers, He is utterly revolted by them, and won’t give the time of day to listening to them.
11. The one who isn’t open to receiving the power found in the Word of God, will offer nothing but impotent and meaningless prayers, and God hates those kinds of prayers.

“Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” (St. Jerome).