Proverbs 15:8-9
I
don’t know if you have ever eaten liver or not, but I have. I am not a liver
lover! In fact, liver goes on my very short list of things I have eaten that I
detest. We are not friends. We are enemies.
If
you detest something, it goes on your ‘enemies of the state’ list, your ‘no fly’
list and any other list you can think of that would prevent it from coming
anywhere near you. The word detest is a stronger word than hate. It involves
not just stating how much something is hated, but then calling God as a witness
to how much you hate the thing. You want the listener to know just how much
they are hated by having God stand up and say, “Those are his true feelings.”
Our
proverb states that the LORD detests the very things the wicked would offer in
an attempt to earn His favor. The sacrifices that would be brought by the
wicked to demonstrate their adherence to the outward forms of religious
practice are the very things that the LORD calls Himself to curse. That is some
pretty strong hatred.
But
why would the LORD hate these sacrifices with such intensity? Because the LORD
sees right through the outward, past all the façade, right to the heart. He
knows the condition of the heart when a sacrifice is made. There is no fooling
Him.
By
contrast the prayer of the righteous person is accepted. Notice first that
prayer is not a sacrifice. It is not something done in order to satisfy a
requirement placed on us by the LORD, whereas a sacrifice does fulfill that
role. Prayer is communication with God. It can take many forms, but true prayer
can’t be a sacrifice in this sense. If it is, it is no longer prayer. It turns
into something very different.
Prayer
that is not a sacrifice pleases the LORD. What do we do with someone or something
that pleases us? We draw it closer to us. We spend time and energy enhancing
the relationship. It moves higher on our ‘To Do’ list. It becomes a top
priority in our lives.