“The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright is his delight.” (Prov. 15:8)
“I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;” (Prov. 1:26)
This is the response of the Lord when the wicked call upon His name in time of trouble, when that request is for selfish reasons, as the majority of their lives have been. They are not in that moment submitting their lives for His glory, they are not repenting and calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of their soul and then accepting His will in their lives, no matter what His will is. A circumstance has occurred in their life, and they want something from Him.
“But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.” (Matt. 6:7)
He hears their words, and they are an abomination to Him, and when their troubles arrive, the Almighty will mock them, no matter how much they pray.
There is no such thing as a “prayer of salvation,” baptism is nothing more than an expression of an already inward faith, the broken and contrite heart that repents before the Lord in the acknowledgement of their sins before Him and realizes that John 14:6 is a truth. “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” that fully accepts the truth of Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:” from that moment on has an Intercessor in heaven for their prayers, for they are all offered by the power of the Holy Spirit working through us for the glory of God.
The ability to come boldly to the throne of grace is given to us, we are welcomed as children loved, as co-heirs of heaven, every petition is heard, and every answered is received with “Thy will be done Father.”
I will not say there is no need to pray for your wicked family members to be healed of their infirmities, that it will avail nothing to pray for your unrepentant friends to have their trials removed from them, but I will suggest this. What purpose will it serve if you do so, and they still die in their sins?
I have prayed that those I know would be broken by the Lord, that life for them would come to a point where there is no place left to turn but to the Lord Jesus Christ, that He would chose them.
At the bottom of the pit my friends, there is no place to look but up.
In times of turmoil and stress, the wicked will many times call upon the Living God to save them, but not their soul. They want to be happy, not holy; they want relief from the temporary discomfort, not saved from the fires of eternal damnation.
“He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” (John 12:25)
They followed the Savior until He stopped feeding them, they followed Him until He said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.” (John 6:53) They followed Him until they came for Him in the garden, and they feared for their own lives.
And then many were taught what faith is.
The prayers of the wicked, unrepentant person are heard, but they are an abomination to the Most High, for they seek their own welfare, not His glory.
Consider these truths as you pray for your friends and family members who deny the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ as needed for their salvation, who treat His sacrifice as a lite thing. When there is no place left to turn but to the Almighty, they may call upon Him for more than the comfort of their flesh, of this life’s needs and wants.
Perhaps that is where you should pray for the Lord to place them, where there is no way out of that pit except by grabbing His hand.
