"THE LORD REFUSES TO HEAR HYPOCRITICAL PRAYERS"

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 28:4,5
Psalm 38:8,10
Psalm 26:1,2
Psalm 9:5,6,7
Psalm 66:7,8

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

How easy do you find prayer? I mean: do you feel that the Lord God hears your prayers, or does it seem to you that heaven is closed, your efforts to pray a waste of time?

The question is important. The Lord Jesus Christ came into this world to restore the relation between sinners and God. So the apostle to the Hebrews tells us emphatically that we should seek God boldly, should not hesitate to come to God with all that on our hearts. But: in the hard school of life we feel from time to time that prayer doesn’t help, that prayer is difficult, that God doesn’t hear. What are we to make of that?

Then we read in Ezekiel’s prophecy the words God spoke within Himself: "should I let Myself be inquired of at all by them?" And we conclude: the Lord does not hear some prayers. So the question comes at us again: might the Lord not want to hear my prayers??

I summarize the sermon this morning with this theme:

At a given moment, brothers and sisters, "some of the elders of Israel came to [Ezekiel] and sat before [him]," says vs 1. We need to be clear in our minds that these elders were leaders, were leaders amongst the exiles. These are people far away from Jerusalem, persons God had removed from His holy city.

The purpose of their coming to Ezekiel was apparently because they had a question they wished to put to the Lord. That in itself was fine, for they had - we are to know- as much ‘right’ (if I may use that word here) as we do to put a question to the Lord. I mean: they were covenant children as much as we are, with the same promises. That is: for the sake of Jesus Christ (whose coming and whose work was proclaimed by the sacrifices of the temple), God in heaven would be their Father, they His children. The incense that had to be offered daily in the temple was instruction to Israel that the people should feel free to speak to their God-by-covenant whenever they wished.

But see now: before these elders could put their question to God, "the word of the Lord came to" Ezekiel in which the Lord told Ezekiel the thoughts of His heart. His thoughts are these: "Should I let Myself be inquired of at all by them?"

How amazing! Given the promises of the covenant and the instructions of the Old Testament temple worship, is it not automatic that God’s people can come to God and He will hear? Where is the problem here? Why would God close His ears to the prayers of these elders? Says God to Ezekiel in vs 3: "these men have set up their idols in their hearts, and put before them that which causes them to stumble into iniquity." That was for God reason to challenge their right to pray.

We pray too, and want God to hear us. Yet it’s clear from the Lord’s word that setting up idols in one’s heart hinders prayer. So we need to understand what that phrase means; how does one set up idols in one’s heart? What are we to think of here? Might we have idols in our hearts?

We can visualize and understand how one sets up idols on the street corner or in one’s house. I understand that in Bali the locals have their idols set up everywhere, and the people present their offerings to their idols indoors and out of doors. That’s something we can visualize. And we recognize easily enough that you can’t bring an offering to your image of Buddha, and then turn around and pray to the Lord God. That’s obviously idolatry, obviously sin, and God is too holy to tolerate that. In a world that celebrates multiculturalism, and therefore lets people worship whatever gods they wish, I trust this element is clear to us: you cannot be a Buddhist and at the same time call upon God and expect He will hear you. We understand that, and therefore tolerate no idols in our homes; we are Christians, not Buddhists.

How, though, does one set up an idol in one’s heart? How do we have to understand that sin? Just what were these elders of the exiles doing that prompted God to refuse to hear their prayers?

Possibly I can best answer the question with reference to Lord’s Day 34. There you and I echo what God teaches in His word about the first commandment, and then we add: "Idolatry is having or inventing something in which to put our trust instead of, or in addition to, the only true God who has revealed Himself in His Word." You can acknowledge openly and publicly that you put your trust in that Buddha, and make that very plain by setting up an image in your house and presenting your offerings to it. But you can also put your trust in some thing other than God in a very subtle, even secret, manner. Then the eye sees no images, and your visitors see no offerings, but you still expect to receive your well-being and your sense of happiness from this thing – whatever it is.

To give the matter more color, I need to take you back for a moment to what the Lord showed Ezekiel in the temple of Jerusalem back in chap 8. You will remember: at the gate of the house of the Lord Ezekiel saw "women … sitting there weeping for Tammuz" (8:14). The point was that Tammuz was a Babylonia deity who –it was said- gave the rains needed to make the crop grow next year. By wailing and weeping you moved Tammuz to show you mercy, and give you the rains you need. That was obvious idolatry in Jerusalem. But Ezekiel also, you recall, had to dig into a wall in the temple, and there he found a door, and behind the door were "70 men of the elders of Israel" burning incense to "every sort of creeping thing, abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel" (8:8ff). While Tammuz was bewailed in public, the idolatry of the 70 elders was done in secret; their idolatry was a matter of the heart, and not a matter of the street. But in essence, of course, there’s no difference.

Is that what we need to think of with respect to these elders of Ezekiel 14? Indeed, congregation, it’s more than likely. Though these elders were exiled from Jerusalem some seven years ago, they have in the meantime not learned to put away the idolatry they’d embraced in Jerusalem. That also explains why they tolerated the foolish prophets and the witches of chap 13. Certainly they thought to serve the Lord, and that’s why they come to Him with their question, but at the same time they privately kept a few other gods on the side. They sought their happiness and well-being in alcohol or in money or in the extra-marital relation they kept on the side, etc. Nobody knew, it wasn’t public; these respected elders amongst God’s people had their closet deities – and meanwhile came publicly to Ezekiel to inquire of the Lord.

That, of course, offended God, because God is God – look at His majesty as displayed in chap 1 in that vision of the angels with wings and eyes and wheels, and over this chariot that firmament with the throne of God high above it, all too glorious for the human eye to behold. Given His glory and His greatness, it follows that His people-by-covenant are to give Him their whole heart, their whole trust, their entire being. But the elders did not do so. Trust in God: o yes, that’s why we come to Him with our question. But at the same time they put trust in creatures, did so secretly…. That’s why God refused to hear their prayers.

A question, brothers and sisters. How could we be guilty of the same sin? We are modern people; how could we set up idols in our hearts? Remember: idolatry is having or inventing something in which to put our trust instead of or in addition to the only true God. That is: I set up an idol in my heart when I expect my sense of happiness or well-being from any source other than God. A modern example? I will not be content unless I have a car as nice as my neighbor’s. Or: I can’t be happy today unless my wife gives me my conjugal rights. Or: I can’t relax about my future until I’ve got a comfortable retirement package all sown up. Or: I trust my own cleverness to get me out of my hot spot. That’s idolatry, beloved, all of it – be it in very modern colors. Of course, I am to use my head in solving my problems, and I have a responsibility to prepare today for tomorrow’s retirement, etc. But setting up an idol is this, that I count on me to solve my problem, that I don’t dare to leave tomorrow’s needs to the Lord alone. Setting up an idol in my heart is this, that I tell myself that I can’t be happy, can’t be secure, unless I have … some created thing, whatever it is. But the Lord says that He wants to be the total cause of our happiness, our security. That’s why He gave His only Son, to make us His children and Himself our Father! So: let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; God has to be my everything, He wants me to trust in Him alone for everything I need – exactly because He is God, recall the vision of Ezekiel 1.

The elders of Ezekiel 14 had set idols in their hearts, and then sought the Lord God in prayer. That last act, seeking the Lord in prayer, makes plain that they certainly didn’t deny the Lord; pagans they were not. But true believers they were not either! By their prayers they said they trusted in God, but the idols in their hearts made clear that that was hypocrisy.

When the Lord tells us of His response to these elders, He wants us to listen along very carefully. For He knows: it is in us to set up idols in our hearts also. God included this material in the Scripture He gave us for our instruction and edification.

I come to our second point:

We’d be inclined to say, brothers and sisters, that the Lord would refuse to hear such hypocritical prayers. But that’s not what the Lord says to the elders in our chapter! Would that that were His response – simply a silent heaven! But His response is worse, much worse! The second part of vs 4: "I the Lord will answer him who comes." Vs 7 repeats it: "anyone of the house of Israel … who … sets up his idols in his heart …, then comes to a prophet to inquire of him concerning Me, I the Lord will answer him by Myself." O yes, God will answer alright, but it will not be a pleasant answer! Instead of God listening as a Father to His child, tenderly, gently answering, keeping in mind that the child who asks is but flesh, the Lord "will set [His] face against that man and make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of My people" (vs 8).

The phrases the Lord uses here, brothers and sisters, are loaded. The Lord says He "will set [His] face against that man." That’s precisely the opposite of the blessing the high priest in the temple was to pronounce over Israel: "the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you…" – a blessing we hear time and again in church also. "The Lord make His face to shine upon you": the point is that God smiles upon you, that God is favorable to you. Well now, were these elders of Israel who trusted in more than God for life’s happiness to approach God in prayer, the Lord would not simply ignore them; no, He would make a point of doing exactly the opposite of what He promised to do in the blessing of the high priest! Instead of blessing and favor, He would give His disfavor, His curse. There’s no neutrality here; those who pray with split allegiance will face the full load of God’s enmity.

The nature of that curse, that enmity, comes out in the second way God will respond. Says He: "I will … make [that man] a sign and a proverb." When Korah, Dathan and Abiram rebelled against the Lord in the desert, the Lord caused the earth to split open and to swallow the rebels with their families and possessions. That event, says the Scripture in Num 26, was "a sign" (vs 10) to the rest of the people, a warning not to fall into the sin of these rebels. So too here: God will do something to these hypocritical pray-ers so that others will learn from their errors not to commit the same sin.

Again, God will make these elders a "proverb". Here we need to think of the promise the Lord made to Israel in Deut 28. One of the curses God would give His people when they broke the covenant is this: "you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the Lord will drive you" (vs 37). That is: you become a conversation piece, but in a very negative way. Passersby will be astonished at you, will hiss and be bewildered that the Lord God of Israel could treat His people in such a fashion.

And if that’s not enough, the Lord will "cut [this hypocritical pray-er] off from the midst of My people" (vs 8). Here is excommunication, being cut off from the people of God and therefore from the promises that belong to the people of God. Tie it all together, congregation, and it’s clear: the Lord’s response to hypocritical prayer is frightening. This is indeed much worse than God ignoring these elders!

Yet, brothers and sisters, the worst of God’s response is still to come. For look at vs 9. These hypocritical elders –they trust in the Lord their God-by-covenant, and at the same time they trust in their pocket book or their ingenuity or spells the witches cast or whatever they case might be- these hypocritical elders put their request to God, and see, the Lord even supplies an answer. But look at the sort of answer! "If the prophet is induced to speak anything, I the Lord have induced that prophet." And straightaway the Lord adds: both the man who inquires of the Lord and the prophet who supplies an answer from God will be punished with the same sort of punishment. That makes it very clear: the prophet speaks an evil prophecy, does not reply in agreement with God’s revealed Word. This prophet, in other words, is one of those foolish prophets of the previous chapter. But God would use him nevertheless, use him to supply an answer to the hypocritical pray-er. Of course, it will be a deceptive answer, the sort of answer the pray-er wanted in the first place and therefore will embrace eagerly – and so God will lead him down the garden path the hypocrite chose for himself to begin with.

We read this, and we’ve straightaway got a dogmatic question: how in the world can holy God induce a man to speak false prophecy? Does this not make God the author of the false prophet’s sin of uttering false prophecy? Two things need to be clear. The first is the total sovereignty of the Lord God over all things. No creature, not even Satan, can move apart from God. Think only of what is written about Satan in the book of Job. Hence the church confesses in Lord’s Day 10 that not only rain and drought, health and sickness, food and drink, etc, but "all things come not by chance but by is fatherly hand." The term ‘all things’ means exactly that. The second thing we need to keep in mind is that God is distinctly not the author of sin. How these two truths match up is beyond the capacity of any human, limited mind to comprehend. But our limitation to understand it does not change the truth of it at all. We do well (with Calvin) to echo David in Ps 36: "Your judgments are a great deep" (vs 6). It’s simply beyond us.

So much for that dogmatic question. And that’s enough for now, for it may not distract our attention from the pressing message of Ezekiel 14! That pressing message is this: the Lord Himself may well send an answer that leads the praying hypocrite up the garden path! Such is God’s hatred of hypocrisy! An example? That married man who finds such consolation in the new relation he has with that wonderful woman…. He knows he should be faithful to his wife, but this new woman is such a stimulation to his work…. He lays it before the Lord, asks God to show him that this is the right way, that Yes, God would have him enjoy this new woman…. God’s answer? He may well let this praying hypocrite conclude that he has God’s blessing on his secret relation – because that’s the answer this praying hypocrite wants to hear in the first place! But note: the answer God gives is part of God’s judgment! The man who comes to God with that divided heart is not sincere in seeking God’s answer, and so God gives him an answer according to his taste. That answer will not truly help the praying man, of course. But here is what the apostle says to the Thessalonians: God sends a strong delusion that people should believe the lie (2 Thes 2:11). You see: their own insincerity in God’s service leaves them wide open to being deceived altogether.

Here, brothers and sisters, is a very disturbing thought. Idolatry is not beyond us; we are as able to set up idols in our hearts as did our brethren long ago. In fact, in our very materialistic culture, the danger is distinctly present that we set our heart upon –and our trust in- earthly riches. And that’s to say nothing of people’s praise. We also recognize that we have seen more of the glory and majesty of God than the brethren of Ezekiel 14 had seen, for we know of Christ crucified for sinners. If we nevertheless permit an idol in our hearts, expect our happiness and well-being from wealth, or from the praise of people, and then still come to God to inquire of His will for us, God will answer us – but answer differently than we desire! He, He, may send preachers who say what the hearers want to hear. In relation to the exiles I think of Shemaiah the Nehelamite who told the exiles that their exile would not last long (Jer 29:24ff); surely that was music to the ears of the exiles! In relation to ourselves today I think of those who teach and preach that it doesn’t matter which church you go to, as long as you’re comfortable; it’s music to human ears, the precise recipe for hearing what we want to hear. But that can be the curse of God; He may cause preachers to arise on our path who tell us what we like to hear – and the result is that we’re led further away from the God we seek-on-our-terms.

That brings us to our third point:

It is the existence of this danger, beloved of the Lord, that makes the command of vs 6 so essential. "Repent," says the English translation, "turn away from your idols, and turn your faces away from all your abominations." Repent, turn, turn: those three English words echo one Hebrew word, and its very repetition makes the verse sound like repeated bursts of gun-fire that keep ringing in your ears. The point of the term ‘repent’, ‘turn’ is that these elders are to do a 180 degree turn-around, that is, they are to cease putting any trust in any created thing, whether that be a public idol as Tammuz or a private idol as their dream to return home to Jerusalem shortly – as if the return home could be the source of their happiness. Instead, they are place trust in God alone, that faithful Father-for-Jesus’-sake who controls all things perfectly, wisely. He supplies what His people need, happiness and well-being can be found only in Him, and so all trust is to be placed in Him alone. The elders didn’t do that, and therefore they had to repent, turn, lest their hypocritical prayers prompt God to answer them in such a terribly destructive manner.

Here, of course, is the lesson for us. To keep an idol in our heart and yet come to God in prayer invites His response – to the point that He sends a delusion so that we believe a lie, and ultimately get completely ensnared by the Father of lies. In His love for His people the Lord tells us of this danger, and so urges us to self-examination, and after self-examination to repentance – if that be necessary. He is God, the awesome, wonderful, glorious God of Ezekiel 1, our Father in Jesus Christ, and because of Who He is does He want our whole heart, our complete trust.

How marvelous, beloved, is this God. He could, you know, leave His people in their delusions, let them call upon Him in hypocrisy, and then give a reply that leads us up the garden path – till we get burnt by our own sins. But see, He doesn’t want to leave His own in any delusion, and therefore gives us the pointed warning of our chapter! Surely, what love that is!

In gratefulness for His care, brothers and sisters, let us see to it that we give Him our whole heart, our complete, undivided trust. Then His promise is sure: He will hear our prayers, and answer in sincerity.  Amen.