Proverbs 15:9 Commentary and Bible Study

This proverb should be understood as providing the reason for the Lord’s rejection of the sacrifice of the wicked and his acceptance of the prayer of the righteous. Though it may suit the hypocrite to be found in a place of worship, his heart is unchanged. He was wicked before he offered his sacrifice and he remains wicked after he has offered it. In his superficiality the wicked expects God to be impressed by what he has done, and presumes that his worship is no different to that of the righteous. Has he not just performed exactly the same ritual as the believing man next to him? He cannot see the difference, but he is entirely blind. Isn’t the Lord happy that such a man is at least moving in the right direction? After all, he used not to worship at all, and now he offers sacrifices to God. But this is not how the Lord sees it. Religion that is done in the interests of self-righteousness is never a movement in the right direction. The strength of the first sentiment in this proverb may surprise the unbeliever, for he cannot see how God can find such displeasure in what he judges to be innocent and harmless much of the time. This miscalculation comes because man does not know himself, and neither does he know the Lord. Because he is too ready to excuse himself and attribute good motives to himself he cannot believe that he is as bad as Scripture says he is. He judges by externals and constantly assumes that the Lord does the same. He wants to believe that what he does know of his own heart, the glimpses that he catches at times of the corruption within, are known only to himself, when the truth is that God sees his heart much more clearly than he does. Also he does not know the Lord, for he thinks that God is less than holy and is ready to tolerate small deceptions and small disobediences. The idea that God is opposed to every part of his life, root and branch, is too shocking to contemplate and would seem unfair to him. He does not understand that from a heart of unbelief and enmity to God, no good thing can come.But the righteous are different. They are not called the righteous because they have already obtained perfection, but because they are striving towards it. Indeed they fail constantly and must come daily to confess their sins but now there is a love of righteousness within them which was not there before conversion. They pursue righteousness, ever following in the direction which it leads. They may experience the frustration that Paul describes in Romans 7, but they will never give up. They hate their own sin and ask for it to be taken away, nevertheless they understand that there will be no final victory until they are released from the body of this death.