Worthless Prayer

he everyone God bless you and thanks a lot for tuning in my reflection today I've entitling worthless prayer worthless prayer as sad as those two words are in they're being joined together worthless prayer happens to be a fundamental theme in the hity of great lent for orthodox Christians it comes up over and over again in The Vespers and the orthos services during the week especially on Mondays it also comes up of many places in the great Cannon of St Andrew which we chant in the first week of Lent and then again in the fifth week

of Lent and then it it's found in its most poignant expression in all of the Holy scriptures in the first chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah and we Orthodox Christians read the prophecy of Isaiah throughout lent in the sixth hour it's appointed to be read in fact the most powerful teaching about worthless prayer comes in the very first chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah which is read in pure week some Parish churches of course don't have the sixth hour service sometimes we priests take the reading from the sixth hour and append it to the orthos

service in the morning if we're doing lent in orthos but this text from Isaiah chapter 1 is devastating Absol absolutely devastating and instructive in the most profound ways the context uh is Isaiah's Ministry it's the 8th Century uh it's been a period just before Isaiah's Ministry began a period of uh peace in the North and the South of Israel but that peace is soon to be shattered by an ascendant and aggressive Assyrian Kingdom that wanted Empire and uh rule over the Earth the people are praying to God but God is not listening their prayers have

become a stench to him he does not pay attention their prayer is worthless hence the title of our reflection today worthless prayer listen to these beautiful words uh of Isaiah as painful as they are I say they're beautiful because truth even when it hurts is beautiful and it leads to the potential for salvation Isaiah 1 ver2 Sons I have reared and brought up have revolted against me this is how the prophecy begins God speaking through his prophet and God says my sons that I have carefully nourished as their father have revolted against me oh familial

Rebellion they're not interested in knowing god and then he continues to describe how the Lord's people are in their great sin an ox knows its owner and a donkey its Master's manger but Israel does not know my people do not understand they have abandoned the Lord they despise the Holy One of Israel and turned away from him oh what a charge what a prophetic injunction what is the Lord so upset about well he's mostly upset about the fact that his people don't care to know him think about that they don't want to know God God

knows them but they aren't interested in the returning to favor how could it be we who who know that this resonates sometimes with us how could we be so deaf to beauty and truth so blind that we won't want to know the Living God which is eternal life itself Jesus says this is eternal life that they may Know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou Hast sent this is the Lord's injunction his challenge to them his charge they've abandoned him despised him turned away from him because they're not interested in knowing him

this is of course a violation of the first and great commandment Jesus teaches us which is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength nothing we should be interested in nothing and knowing nothing more than knowing god and then in that knowledge know the rest of the world he continues as though their violation of the first great commandment wasn't enough they also are violating the second commandment to love your neighbor as yourself he continues your hands are full of blood they were engaged in violence and if they

were engaged in violence just think of us today so much violence so this is the condition of the people it's so bad Isaiah says in verse 9 they have become so bad that they are like Sodom and gomorah saying that there there's nothing worse than that Isaiah could have said to take up the remembrance of Sodom and Gomorrah this is 1,00 years this is from the time of the patriarch Abraham 2000 BC this is the 8th Century this is 12200 years before this 1300 years before this and yet the image of Sodom and Gomorrah remains

you know stuck this is what a people who have abandoned God and have given themselves to every perversion this is what happens to a people The Plains of Gomorrah were referred to uh even by the church fathers they they had a visual remembrance of how horrible uh the life of godlessness is he's saying that Israel God's people not Sodom and Gomorrah now he's taking he's taking that description of those uh wretches and he's applying it to God's Own people the Covenant people to Israel herself they deserve to be completely and totally decimated this is what

God is saying through his prophet of course our Lord Jesus Christ picks up the same prophetic Trope and he uses it in his own teaching to issue woes against the cities where he had performed many miracles but they didn't repent they weren't interested in knowing him just like Israel in the 8th Century wasn't woe to you korzen woe to you Betha woe to you capernium if the Miracles had occurred in Sodom and Gomorrah that incurred in in you they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and Ashes Jesus said this is just where we were

this last Sunday right if you are an Orthodox Christian and you were worshiping in church you would have heard the story of Jesus's miracle healing the paralyzed man who was brought to him in cernium by his friends four friends carrying him on a pallet they lowered him through the roof and Jesus performed this great miracle using it as an occasion to reveal himself as the forgiver of sins as the Divine Son of God who's capable and willing to forgive men's sins the greatest disease that we have that town did not respond to that Miracle well

and Jesus pronounced woe upon it and said its Destiny uh is worse than the destiny of Sodom and Gomorrah wow piety not rooted in a desire to know God if we pray but we're not praying chiefly to know him to learn to love him religion not centered on loving God is foul piety that doesn't Express itself in loving your neighbor as yourself if we speak the words of praise to God but our hands are involved with blood or violent or participating in evil deeds and working in evil industries that hurt people our piety is grotesque

this is the message of the Prophet next he continues and explains the result what's the result of God's people living this way well the result he gives four four Reflections from God's perspective first God disdains his people's sacrifices his their lurgical services their work despises them verse 11 what are your multiplied sacrifices to me says the Lord I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle and I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls lambs and goats bring your worthless offerings no longer the offerings are worthless all that

they were doing for God which he commanded he's the one who commanded the animal sacrifices not because the blood of animals take away sins the fathers say that God commanded animal sacrifice in the Old Testament as a preventative so that the people wouldn't participate in Pagan satanic worship and would be prepared for the coming of the Lamb of God the Lord Christ himself who would take away the sins of the World by his own sacrifice on the cross but God disdains even what He commands when it's brought to him with this kind of life no

interest in knowing him and no love for other people that's number one God disdains his people's sacrifices he's offended by their incense incense is an Abomination to me he commanded the incense he even gave Moses the recipe of the incense incense is to be a beautiful offering to God and it is when it's combined with a desire to please him love him know him and to serve others but in this case not just their sacrifices in lurgical Services the incense itself it's a foul stench in God's nose third God cannot endure their keeping of the

Sabbath and the holy days their whole lurgical calendar which he ordered the four seasonal fasts the great feasts Passover Pentecost all of these things foul to him can't endure them quote I cannnot Endure iniquity and the solemn assembly those two together hear that why does he not like their solemn assembly because they're living in iniquity there's no repentance there's no humility and they're participating in in the these Divine services with hearts like that says the Lord says I can't endure it I hate your festivals and feasts they are a burden to me I am weary

of bearing them not only are they foul but God has been worn down in as much as God can be worn down he's worn down sinning is bad enough but going to church with those sins the joining of the two is just intolerable and then lastly God rejects their worth less prayer when you spread out your hands in prayer I will hide my eyes from you yes even though you multiply prayers I will not listen your hands are covered with blood O Lord have mercy just saying these things from the prophet Isaiah just leaves me

breathless God forbid that we live like this God forbid that our sacrifices our liturgy our incense our keeping of the Holy Days our prayer becomes worthless and a foul stench to God St John chosan writes in his commentary on Isaiah 1 there is no benefit in prayers if one if the one praying stays in his sins and Isaiah as the Evangelical Prophet that he is ends with a call to repentance and a great offer of Salvation the Lord speaks this truth in love he says these extremely hard words to his people through his prophet Isaiah

so that they will awaken to the danger of their own situation that they are in a catastrophically dangerous scenario because of their love affair with sin and their disregard of piety and loving God and these are his words wash yourselves remove the evil of your Deeds cease to do evil learn to do good we can cease evil immediately by repentance and then we put ourselves in a position of discipleship to learn to do the good cease to do evil learn to do good seek Justice reprove the ruthless don't shed blood don't practice violence don't kill

children instead reprove those who do defend the orphan plead for the Widow these are the words of the Lord evil and piety cannot coexist and then he offers them this gracious encouragement if you do this if you take my counsel to repent he says he gives us a gracious promise come now let us reason together though your sins are as Scarlet they will be as white as snow though they are red like Crimson they will be like wool if you consent and Obey you will eat the best of the land if these people repent and

choose life then the Lord will embrace them and Grant them incredible things this is really Isaiah's uh commentary inspired by God of course uh on the call of Moses to the people of God just before they entered the promised land right so this is as I'm saying about 600 plus years before Isaiah issued this call Moses did the same thing let me read it to you it's an incredible text that comes at the end of the pentad it's the 30th chapter of Deuteronomy this is how he ends see I have set before you today life

and prosperity and death and adversity in that I command you today to love the Lord your God to walk in his ways and to keep his Commandments and his statutes and his judgments that you may live and multiply and that the Lord your God May bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it but if your heart turns away and you will not obey but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them I declare to you today that you shall surely perish you will not prolong your days in the land

where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death the blessing and the curse so choose life in order that you may live you and your descendants by loving the Lord your God by obeying his voice and by holding fast to him for this is your life and the length of your days that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers what a beautiful word dear ones let us now this great

lent choose life let us humble ourselves and reason with the Lord put our heads down and repent of our sins joining love for God to love for people this is a piety that will make our prayers authentic and powerful and not worthless let us learn to do good loving mercy God be with you patristic nectar Publications is pleased to present enduring love laying Christian foundations for marriage marriage preparation together with the sacred institution itself has fallen on Hard Times in the post-christian west it is more important than ever for couples to saturate their hearts and

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