There is a time when the Lord will not hear our prayers, even the prayers of those of us who are believers.
That is a harsh statement, but perhaps this is a harsh time, demanding harsh truths. The fact is, would you rather hear easy words that may not be true or harsh words that will change your life? I know for me, sometimes I’m tired of harsh things. But harsh things from the Lord are like goodness to my heart because they come from His heart of love, His longing for me to be in right relationship with Him.
“Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear.”
I think that many of us have been taught that when God is silent, He is not ignoring us. And that may be true some of the time. But there are other times when God is silent because He is refusing to hear our prayers, regardless of how many prayers we pray. You see, He is waiting for one specific prayer, the prayer of confession, the prayer of repentance. We know that He will always hear that prayer because He has promised so. 1 John 1:9 states, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” To whom should we confess? Well, first of all, we need to confess to the Father. After committing adultery (and getting exposed publically), King David prayed:
“For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight” (Psalm 51:3-4, NKJV).
The evil that we do is first and foremost against God. It may also be against others, but our confession must first be to Him.
There is a sequence within the verses in Isaiah that I think are important. The first is to “wash yourself, make yourselves clean.” Now, of course, we can’t expunge our sins ourselves, but we can confess them and seek the Father’s forgiveness. He has promised to cleanse us from all unrighteousness once we confess. However, that cleansing is conditional; it hinges upon our willingness to confess at least the sins we know. (Are there sins we commit of which we may be unaware? Yes, of course.)
The second thing is to put away the evil that we are doing. In the words of my pastor, “Stop it!” It’s that simple . . . and that hard. Things that we have been doing have become habits. We may actually fall into the behavior without even thinking, at least initially. So we need to make a conscious effort to put the evil away.
I think about putting things away. It’s very easy to not put things away. Have you ever done that in your home? I know that teenagers are often accused of not putting away their clothes and other possessions, but simply dropping them on the nearest surface. I do that, too, sometimes, simply leaving things at the closest place and not putting them away . . . in the cupboard, in the closet, in the dishwasher, back on the shelves, in the drawer. It only takes a few seconds to put something away, but sometimes we feel so overwhelmed, so tired. We indulge ourselves by not putting away. And yet, it only takes a few things not put away to completely mess up our homes.
The Lord here is talking about more than just dropping our evil in the nearest drawer so that it is out of sight. He’s talking about putting it away from us completely forever. Digging a hole and burying it so that it can never be seen (or done) again. He says to “put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes.” God sees all! So if we are to put away our sin, it means we can never, ever, EVER do it again.
A few years ago I developed an allergy to chocolate. Well, I think I developed this allergy. I spent six of the worse hours of my life in a hospital ER with pains that were so horrible that I wanted to die. The doctor was flummoxed and couldn’t decide what the problem was. They tested me for a heart attack, for ulcers, for all kinds of things. Finally after talking to me, he told me that his best guess was that I had developed a reaction to the chocolate that I had eaten that day. I decided to never eat chocolate again. Even if the doctor was wrong, it’s simply not worth the chance.
Never to eat chocolate again. Now I have to tell you that I absolutely love hot fudge sundaes, chocolate chip cookies, and chocolate cream candy from Sees. But I will never eat any of it again. I have put it away forever.
There are other things in my life much more important that my reaction to chocolate that I should put away forever. These are sins and are an affront to the Father Who gave His all for me. I need to put them away.
God emphasizes that when He continues with “Cease to do evil.” Just stop it! My husband and I were talking last night about how self indulgent our society has become. Our days seem to be filled with the question of “what do I want to do now?” rather than focusing on what we should be doing. (There are so many ministry opportunities staring us in the face if we would simply put aside the idea that our time, our resources, our efforts are our own.) The scripture commands us to “cease to do evil.” If we have the courage to ask, God will reveal to us those things we are doing that are evil.
Lastly He tell us to “learn to do good.” Do you know that we aren’t born good? We are born innocent, which is actually not a lack of sin but a protection from the sin that has already captured our hearts simply because, as babies, we don’t have the wherewithal to step aside from ourselves and see the Lord. But as babies, we are not good. Quite the contrary, babies are totally self-absorbed! We have to learn to do good. We have to find out what those good things are and then train ourselves to do them. And the best, most reliable teacher is the Holy Spirit. Other teachers may point us in the right direction, but we need to be careful to whom we listen. Some people who appear to be trustworthy actually are not! They are false teachers. But we can listen to the Holy Spirit every time and know that He speaks only the heart of God.
If we want the Father to hear our prayers, we must first deal with our sin. We must confess it, put it aside, and learn to do good. And then the Father, Who longs to speak to us, will hear and prayers and have communion with us.
© 2012 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.
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