Now, the Bible does not list very many things that God directly calls an abomination to him. An abomination is an extraordinarily, visceral and extreme word. It’s something that is not used often. It’s something you don’t just throw around meaninglessly. But I read this morning that it is possible for us to make even our prayers an abomination. It says in Proverbs 28, “If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.” So it’s possible for prayer to God to be an abomination. Astounding to think about it that way. And it’s astounding to think about the fact that it is possible for us even as Christians to make our prayer an abomination to God.

If we turn away from the law of God, if we turn away from hearing what God has to say to us through his scriptures, through his revealed word, then it is possible that God will become so angry with us that he will consider our prayers fruitless. We don’t want to be guilty of that. And yet we find, so often, one of the things that pastors around the world, especially in America, are very quick to turn their ears away from hearing what God has to say about abortion.

I don’t want to sound too extreme by saying if you’re a pastor and you’re not speaking on abortion all the time in your pulpit, then God is not listening to your prayers and they are an abomination to God. However, it is possible for that to be the case if you are aware of what the strong language concerning the shedding of innocent blood is in the Bible and what God’s law says about our responsibility as leaders to talk about the abomination of shedding the innocent blood and you refuse to say anything about it. That is how it is possible that our prayers could become an abomination.

Now, you just heard me say that shedding of innocent blood is another one of the things in the scriptures that’s called an abomination. And the shedding of innocent blood is one of the things that can turn God away from hearing our prayers. Here is the first chapter of Isaiah beginning in verses 15-16, “When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen to them. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, make yourself clean. Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes. Cease to do evil.” Your hands are full of blood so I’m not going to listen to what you pray. I’m just not going to listen. You are not serious about following me. You’re not serious about obeying me. You’re not serious about the things that I had asked you to be serious about. And in this way, we can turn even our prayers into an abomination before God.

Here is what I’m saying: pastors and ministry leaders lead well. This is one of the things that we at Passion Life go around the world teaching and training on often. The responsibility of leaders to not intentionally be quiet on the things that we know God has revealed his will on. We need to bring those up with our people because if we don’t bring those up, who is talking loudly about those issues? The culture.

The culture is not saying what the Bible is saying about these issues. Abortion being one of them. Our people will listen to the loudest voice in the room and if we’re not speaking about abortion, people will assume that it’s not important to God or they will assume that God really doesn’t have a strong opinion on it, or maybe He’s even fine with whatever we decide. The

culture is saying that abortion is so often a compassionate answer to problems that people have. That’s just not what the Bible says.

We must come down firmly on the side of the Bible with our people so that our prayers are not an abomination to God and so that our hands are not metaphorically full of innocent blood because of our willing silence on the issue. Preach. Speak. Talk. Have conversations with people. Don’t be afraid of the topic of abortion. The fact that abortion has become such a popular thing to talk about in the news media and on the television screen and on social media means that we can have these conversations now. I mean, we could have them before, but right now is the time to press forward and express our opinions on what the Bible says about shedding innocent blood. Don’t be afraid to talk about it. Don’t be afraid to preach about it. Don’t be afraid to lead well. If you will lead well, God will meet you and he will supply.