Here is the condition for answered prayer and the hypocrite cannot satisfy it: to delight in the Almighty and to love his character, his providence, his ways of dealing with men, his justice and his holiness. This, it is quite impossible for the hypocrite to bring himself to do. Another mark is constancy in prayer. The righteous man has God so fixed before his eyes that he cannot turn to any other source of help. He prays in times of prosperity and in prays in times of hardship. Prayer is his unvarying response to every situation, for nothing is too hard for the Lord and he believes that the help of man is vain (Psalm 60:11).
The hypocrite has forfeited the right to be heard by God. What help can he expect in his darkest moments? Why should God answer his prayer when he has ignored the Lord all his life? His conscience has spoken many times before and every time he suppressed it, silenced it, and showed that its message was unwelcome. That act was a prayer which eventually God answered by leaving him alone. Even among human beings, men will not allow themselves to be taken advantage of so crassly. If someone calls on the name of the Lord, they will not be answered if he kno9ws that they intend to manipulate him for their own purposes and call only for deceitful reasons. Every call to God must contain the element of humility and self-abasement, recognition of guilt, and a willingness to repent and to change in future. But the hypocrite trains himself to be insincere. He shows what is really in his heart, for every time he thought he saw a way of getting help without the Lord he made use of it; now he sees he cannot survive without God’s help so he calls on him, but even in this extremity he cannot bring himself to be sincere. Therefore God will not hear him, as he has warned in advance. Very few are saved on their death beds and surely none who presumptuously plan on being saved at the very end.
‘Here it may be asked, how can it happen that God refuses a man who calls on him, seeing he has promised that he will always be inclined to help us, and even that he will not wait to be intreated, but will anticipate our plea, or at least that we can be sure that as soon as we open our mouths, he will be ready to help us? … Here we see a threat that is completely contrary to this, which is that although the wicked have recourse to God and desire him to have mercy on them, he will not hear them. The solution is very easy [Psalm 145:18], namely that God is near to all that call upon him in truth. There the prophet shows that many seek God in pretence. Unbelievers too call upon God, even though they have mocked at religion and at all things that are spoken of in Scripture concerning his providence, mercy, and grace. When pinched with adversity they cry out to God. So hypocrites and despisers of God may well have some form of prayer. They may do so not just with the teeth [mouth] but even with some affection of the heart, and yet it is not done in truth. They do not know how to say, “My God calls me and draws me to him, and I shall not be disappointed in coming to him. Since it is his pleasure to reckon me among his children, I will go to him, not rashly and presumptuously, but in obedience to the voice of my God, trusting his promise” … The faithless man is discovered when the Lord does not handle them as they wish, but holds them up in some distress, for they fret and fume against him. But by contrast if God scourges the faithful man who prays to him in prosperity as well as in time of need, he does not cease to pray, imploring God to heal his wounds. In summary, God’s children continue in prayer and persevere so that although God afflicts them, and seems to turn against them and be deaf to their requests, yet nevertheless they still hold on to him’ (Calvin – in modern English).