The Great Divide in Prayer Text: Proverbs 15:29
Introduction: Two Kinds of People
The book of Proverbs, and indeed the entire Bible, operates on a fundamental, non-negotiable distinction. It is the great continental divide of humanity. There are not, in the final analysis, many different kinds of people. There are only two. There are the wise and the foolish, the sheep and the goats, those who build on the rock and those who build on the sand, and, as our text today puts it, there are the wicked and the righteous. And the difference between them is not found in their socio-economic status, their skin color, their education, or their political party. The difference is found in their relationship to the living God.
Our secular, egalitarian age despises such sharp distinctions. It wants to believe that everyone is basically good, that all paths lead to the same mountaintop, and that God, if He exists at all, is a sort of benevolent, doting grandfather in the sky who would never dream of making such stark judgments. But the Word of God is not interested in flattering our democratic sensibilities. It is interested in telling us the truth about reality. And the truth is that God is holy, and He makes a profound and eternal distinction between those who are in covenant with Him and those who are in rebellion against Him.
This verse from Proverbs brings this distinction to bear on one of the most basic of all human activities: prayer. Everyone prays, in a manner of speaking. The atheist in the foxhole prays. The pagan prays to his idols. The modern spiritualist sends good vibes into the universe. But this verse tells us that not all prayers arrive at the same destination. God is not an indiscriminate cosmic switchboard operator. There is a great chasm fixed. This proverb establishes a foundational principle of divine communication: God's posture toward a person is determined by that person's moral and spiritual state. He draws near to one, and He is far from the other.
The Text
Yahweh is far from the wicked,
But He hears the prayer of the righteous.
(Proverbs 15:29 LSB)
Far From the Wicked
The first clause lays down a terrifying reality:
"Yahweh is far from the wicked..." (Proverbs 15:29a)
Now, we must be careful here. This is not speaking of God's omnipresence. God, in His essence, is everywhere. David tells us in Psalm 139 that there is nowhere in creation we can go to flee from His Spirit. He is in heaven, and He is in Sheol. He upholds the universe by the word of His power, which means He is intimately present to every atom, sustaining its existence moment by moment. So in that sense, God is not "far" from anyone. The wicked man breathes God's air, stands on God's earth, and will one day stand before God's throne.
This "farness" is not spatial; it is relational. It is the distance of covenantal displeasure. It means God has turned His face away. He is far from them in terms of favor, blessing, fellowship, and help. The wicked man lives his life in active rebellion against the God who made him. He builds his life on the sandy foundation of his own autonomy. He is his own law, his own god. And so, when he gets into trouble and decides to cry out for help, God says, in effect, "You wanted to be on your own. You are."
Isaiah says it with piercing clarity: "Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear" (Isaiah 59:1-2). It is not a lack of power on God's part. It is a judicial reality established by the sin of the man. Sin is a repellent to the holy God. The wicked man spends his life telling God to leave him alone, and in a terrible irony, God eventually grants his request.
This is why the religious activity of the wicked is an abomination to God. Just a few verses earlier, Solomon says, "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD" (Proverbs 15:8). Why? Because it is hypocrisy. It is an attempt to bribe God, to use religious ritual as a cloak for a rebellious heart. It is treating God like a cosmic vending machine, where you can ignore Him for years, and then, in a crisis, pop in a prayer and expect a blessing to drop out. God will not be used like that. He is a Father to be loved and obeyed, not a utility to be exploited.
He Hears the Righteous
But the proverb pivots on that glorious word, "but." The contrast is absolute.
"...But He hears the prayer of the righteous." (Proverbs 15:29b)
While God is far from the wicked, He draws near to the righteous. While His ears are closed to one, they are open to the other. To "hear" in this context is not simply to register sound waves. It means to listen with favor, to attend to, to answer. It is the hearing of a loving father who leans down to catch the whisper of his beloved child.
So who are these "righteous" people? This is the crucial question. If we get this wrong, we get the whole gospel wrong. The righteous are not those who have achieved a state of sinless perfection. They are not those who have, through their own grit and moral effort, pulled themselves up by their ethical bootstraps to a level where God is now impressed with them. If that were the case, no one's prayers would ever be heard. "None is righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10).
The "righteous" in Scripture are those who have been declared righteous by God on the basis of faith. Theirs is not a self-generated righteousness; it is an imputed righteousness. It is the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, credited to their account. They are the ones who have stopped trying to justify themselves and have instead trusted in the finished work of Christ for their justification. They stand before God clothed not in their own filthy rags, but in the spotless robes of the Son.
This is the foundation of all true prayer. We do not approach God on the basis of our performance, but on the basis of Christ's performance. We pray "in Jesus' name," which is not a magic formula tacked on to the end of a prayer, but a profound theological declaration. It means we are coming with the authority of Jesus, in the righteousness of Jesus, as sons and daughters adopted through Jesus. As the writer to the Hebrews says, we can "draw near with confidence to the throne of grace" precisely because we have a great high priest, Jesus the Son of God (Hebrews 4:14-16).
This does not mean that the practical righteousness of a believer's life is irrelevant. Not at all. The one who is justified by faith will also be sanctified by the Spirit. A life of faith is a life of repentance and obedience. James tells us that "the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working" (James 5:16). The righteousness that gives us access to God is Christ's, but the fruit of that access is a life that increasingly reflects His character. If we are cherishing sin in our hearts, our fellowship with God is hindered, and our prayers become ineffective (Psalm 66:18). Not because we have lost our justification, but because we are grieving the Holy Spirit and acting like the wicked from whom God is far.
Conclusion: The Great Invitation
This proverb, then, is not a word of condemnation for the struggling saint. It is a word of immense comfort and assurance. But it is also a dire warning and a glorious invitation to the one who is still in his wickedness.
The warning is this: do not fool yourself. You cannot live in rebellion to the King and expect to have access to the resources of His kingdom in your hour of need. Your prayers are hitting a brass ceiling because your sin has separated you from a holy God. You are far from Him because you have pushed Him far from you.
But the invitation is this: the distance can be closed. The separation can be bridged. The God who is far from the wicked has, in an act of astonishing grace, come near. "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ" (Ephesians 2:13). The chasm was bridged by the cross. God the Son became a man, lived the perfectly righteous life we have all failed to live, and died the death that our wickedness deserved. He took our sin upon Himself, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Therefore, the first and most important prayer that any wicked man can pray, and the one prayer that God always hears, is the cry for mercy. It is the prayer of the tax collector, beating his breast and saying, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" (Luke 18:13). When you pray that prayer in faith, you are instantly translated from the category of "the wicked" to the category of "the righteous." You are brought near. The Father's ear is inclined toward you, not because of who you are, but because of who you are in His Son. And from that moment on, you have the incredible privilege of speaking to the God of the universe as your Father, knowing that He hears you.