The Aroma of Righteousness: The Two Altars Text: Proverbs 15:8
Introduction: The War Over Worship
We live in an age that is drowning in religiosity and starving for want of true worship. Our culture is filled with sacrifices, offerings laid on a thousand different altars. Men sacrifice their families on the altar of career, their integrity on the altar of profit, and their minds on the altar of fleeting digital pleasures. And when they come to church, they often bring the same diseased mindset with them. They believe that God can be managed, that He can be placated with the right external performance. They bring their songs, their tithes, their attendance, and they lay it all down on the offering plate, expecting God to be impressed. They treat worship like a transaction, a spiritual vending machine. If I put in my hour of service, God will dispense a week of blessing.
But this is the ancient religion of Cain, and it stinks in the nostrils of God. It is the religion of King Saul, who thought a bleating sheep could cover the stench of a disobedient heart. It is the religion of the Pharisees, whose prayers were performances and whose righteousness was a fresh coat of paint on a tomb full of bones. And it is the religion of modern, therapeutic, man-centered evangelicalism, which is far more concerned with the worshiper's experience than with God's glory. It is a religion of smoke machines and emotional highs, a sacrifice of the wicked that God calls an abomination.
The book of Proverbs, as is its custom, cuts through all this sentimental fog with a sharp, two-edged sword. It presents us not with a spectrum of acceptable worship styles, but with a stark, binary choice. There are two kinds of worshipers, two kinds of offerings, and two divine responses. One is an abomination. The other is His delight. There is no middle ground. God is not a passive observer of our worship; He is the active judge of it. And what He judges is not the polish of the performance, but the posture of the heart.
This verse forces us to ask the most fundamental question of our spiritual lives: When I come before God, does the aroma of my life please Him, or does it revolt Him? Is my worship a fragrant offering, or is it the smoke of a strange fire?
The Text
The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to Yahweh,
But the prayer of the upright is His delight.
(Proverbs 15:8)
The Abominable Sacrifice (v. 8a)
The first clause sets the negative pole, the worship that God hates.
"The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to Yahweh..." (Proverbs 15:8a)
Let us be very clear about what this is saying. The "sacrifice" mentioned here is not some pagan ritual offered to a demon. The context assumes an Israelite bringing a bull or a lamb to the Tabernacle, a sacrifice commanded by the law of Moses. This is religious activity. This is "going to church." This is a man doing something that, from the outside, looks entirely proper. He's following the rubrics. He's checked all the boxes.
The problem is not the sacrifice itself, but the sacrificer. He is "wicked." In the Bible, wickedness is not simply a matter of committing a list of forbidden acts. At its root, wickedness is a state of rebellion against the Creator. The wicked man is one who lives as though he is his own god. He is functionally autonomous. He does not submit his heart, his business, his family, or his thoughts to the lordship of Jesus Christ. He is a covenant-breaker. He lives in a state of settled defiance to the terms of reality as God has defined them.
And when this man brings his sacrifice, God calls it an "abomination." This is one of the strongest words of revulsion in the Hebrew language. It is used to describe idolatry, sexual perversion, and things that are ritually unclean and disgusting. God is not mildly displeased. He is not just "not into it." He is utterly repulsed. The sacrifice of the wicked is nauseating to Him. Why? Because it is hypocrisy of the highest order. It is an attempt to use God's own prescribed methods of worship as a tool to manipulate Him, to bribe Him, to put Him in our debt. The wicked man thinks he can live for himself all week, and then square things with God for an hour on Sunday. He uses the forms of religion as a cloak to cover a heart that is at war with the very God he pretends to honor.
As the prophet Samuel told Saul, "Has Yahweh as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of Yahweh? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice" (1 Samuel 15:22). God is not interested in the religious machinery if the heart of the operator is in rebellion. Isaiah says the same: "Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me... When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood" (Isaiah 1:13, 15). The presupposition of all true worship is a submitted heart. Without that, all our religious efforts are just clanging gongs, abominable sacrifices.
The Delightful Prayer (v. 8b)
In stark contrast, we have the offering that God loves.
"...But the prayer of the upright is His delight." (Proverbs 15:8b)
Notice the glorious parallel. On the one hand, a formal, expensive, bloody "sacrifice." On the other, a simple "prayer." God is not impressed with the sheer expense or grandeur of our worship. The wicked man brings a bull, and God is disgusted. The upright man brings his words, his heart, and God is delighted.
Who is this "upright" man? He is the opposite of the wicked. He is the one whose life is aligned with God's reality. He is "upright" or "straight." He is not trying to live a double life. He is a man who fears God, who walks in His ways, and whose fundamental desire is to please Him. This does not mean he is sinless. The upright man sins, but his response to sin is repentance. The wicked man's response to sin is to cover it with more religion. The upright man knows he has no standing before God apart from grace. His life is oriented toward the covenant.
And his prayer is God's "delight." The word means pleasure, favor, acceptance. While the wicked man's elaborate ritual is an abomination, the simple, heartfelt cry of a righteous man is a source of joy to the Almighty. Think of that. The God who spoke galaxies into existence, who needs nothing from us, takes personal pleasure in the prayers of His people. A father delights in the stumbling words of his toddler. He is not critiquing the grammar; he is delighting in the relationship. So it is with our Heavenly Father.
Why prayer? Because prayer is the native language of dependence. Sacrifice can be performed from a position of pride, as if we are bringing something of value to God. But prayer, true prayer, is an admission of need. It is the cry of a beggar. It is the confession that we are not self-sufficient. The upright man prays because he knows he is not God. The wicked man offers sacrifice to pretend that he is. Prayer is the aroma of a humble and contrite heart, and this is the sacrifice that God will not despise (Psalm 51:17).
The Great Exchange
This proverb presents us with an absolute antithesis. There is no overlap. You are either wicked or upright. Your worship is either an abomination or a delight. And this should drive every one of us to a point of crisis. Because if we are honest, we know that in ourselves, we are not upright. Our hearts are crooked. We are born sons of Adam, rebels to the core. Our best efforts are tainted with sin. Our righteousness is as filthy rags. So how can any of us ever hope to offer a delightful prayer? How can we escape the category of the wicked?
The answer is found not in our performance, but in the Great High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only truly "upright" man who ever lived. His entire life was a prayer of perfect obedience, a sacrifice that was a true delight to the Father. He lived the life of perfect submission that we have failed to live.
And on the cross, He took upon Himself the abomination of our sin. He became the sacrifice of the wicked. He endured the revulsion and wrath of the Father that our hypocritical worship deserved, so that we, in turn, could be clothed in His perfect uprightness. By faith in Christ, a great exchange takes place. Our wickedness is imputed to Him, and His righteousness is imputed to us (2 Corinthians 5:21). He takes our abominable record, and He gives us His delightful one.
Conclusion: Worship in Spirit and Truth
Therefore, the application of this proverb is not to try harder to be "upright" in our own strength. That is the very path of the wicked, the path of self-righteousness. The application is to abandon all trust in our own sacrifices and to flee to Christ. It is to come to God with the only thing an upright man can bring: the empty hands of faith.
When we are united to Christ by faith, our status before God is fundamentally changed. We are now the "upright." We are accepted in the Beloved. And because we are in Him, our prayers, faltering and feeble as they are, ascend to the Father as a delight. They are a delight not because of our eloquence, but because they are perfumed with the incense of Christ's own intercession. He is the one who takes our imperfect prayers and makes them perfect before the throne.
This transforms our entire understanding of worship. True worship is not about what we bring to God, but about thankfully receiving what He has given us in His Son. It is a covenant renewal ceremony, where we confess our sin and our need, we hear His word of pardon and consecration in the gospel, we are fed at His table, and we are sent out with His blessing. It is a life lived in glad submission to King Jesus. When that is the posture of our heart, then every prayer, every song, every act of obedience becomes a delightful offering, an aroma of Christ rising to a well-pleased God.