God Is Not Impressed With Spectacular Prayers

Matthew 6:7, “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.”

I recently heard a ministerial student pray for me. I didn't laugh but wanted to. He prayed something like this...

Dear Father of spectacular lights and all created beings, great God of the cosmos and all personalities in the universe, I pray with all superlatives and depth of richness from my soul. Please bestow your grandeur blessings upon this struggling servant of yours. We pray for the beneficial magnificent of thine orderly blessings.

Something like that. I cannot even repeat his formal speech, but he lost me after the first sentence. I thanked the younger fella for praying for me because he did it from a sincere heart. But I felt compelled to write this article to teach others that when you pray, just be yourself. It is annoying to me when people pray using big words, and in my humble opinion are being hypocritically sanctimonious in nature, laying it on thick with the religious lingo. There is just something sweet about hearing a simple common man pray. You can keep all that bigger than life, Hollywood style, theological deeper life, stuff-shirt type pompous prayers. That doesn't impress me at all, and I think I can confidently say neither does it impress God.

I heard Pastor Jack Hyles say that he doesn't like praying in public, and I couldn't agree more. Dr. Hyles says that when we pray in the presence of others, we are carefully articulating out words to impress other people. Whereas when we pray at home alone, or in the solitude of our soul, we just talk to God as we would a friend (and that's how prayer should be).

I am against religion formalism in church. When I attended the Discovery Class for the First Baptist Church of Pensacola in 2022, one of their assistant pastors said that their church prides itself in “formal worship.” That didn't impress me one bit. In stark contrast, my hero of the Christian faith Pastor Jack Hyles wrote a whole chapter against formalism in his 1993 helpful book titled, “Enemies Of Soul Winning.” In am referring to chapter 3, “Formal Worship: An Enemy Of Soul Winning.” Nothing has killed churches today like formal worship!

At the First Baptist Church of Pensacola they do not sing the old hymns of the Christian faith that I grew up with and cherish. Instead, they sing spiritually lifeless Episcopalian type formal songs that are a sure cure for insomnia. The church is weird. They host a contemporary church service at 8:15 am, and then a formal worship service at 10:45 am. I always say that the contemporary service is too contemporary for me, and the formal service is too formal for me.

In neither church service do they sing the wonderful old hymns of the faith. They don't sing songs like: At Calvary, What A Friend We have In Jesus, I Am Resolved, At The Cross and Nothing But The Blood. Sorry, you won't find those foundational songs of the Christian faith in America at the First Baptist Church of Pensacola. Instead, you'll find 7-11 songs. That is, 7 words repeated 11 times. I dread today's lifeless neo-evangelical church music!

You'll sadly also find the Devil's lie of Lordship Salvation. You'll find that nearly all the women wear their worldly pants. The preaching is lame at best, and dead. The church does a lot of charitable work for the community, but that doesn't make them good people. Please listen to Evangelist Justin Zhong preach this applicable sermon titled: 'Balaam, Son Of Bosor.' Even the Apostle Judas was given the power by Jesus to cast out demons (Matthew 11:1); and yet the Bible says Judas was a known thief (John 12:6), and had a devil in him (John 7:70). I digress.

When Evangelist John R. Rice (1895-1980) was asked to pray for the meal they were about to eat at Hyles-Anderson College, everybody expected him to pray a lengthy sanctimonious pietistic type of prayer. But the elderly godly preacher simply prayed: “Thank you dear Lord for this food we are about to eat. Amen.” I want to be that man! I don't want to impress others with my praying. I dread praying in public, I really do, and I try to avoid it at all cost. In the last church that I attended, I intentionally didn't join, knowing that only voted-in members were allowed to pray publicly. They never asked me to pray and I couldn't have been happier not being asked to pray. My life of prayer is personal between me and my faithful God.

But if you are asked to pray in public friend, please don't sound like a religious nut. I mean, you can clearly tell when someone has prepared a prayer. If you ever watch someone pray at a White House prayer breakfast, they read off a teleprompter. Nothing is said from the heart. President Donald Trump has been known to use a teleprompter during speeches, including prayer gatherings at the White House. Prayers should never be read from a script. To do so just proves that it's all a carefully plotted ruse, not sincere.

Matthew 6:7, “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.” I often think about this Bible verse, because it confirms that heathens can pray. As I mentioned earlier, Judas Iscariot had the power to cast out devils (Matthew 11:1). Hellbound heathens can pray, fast, tithe, fear God and give alms to the poor, as evidenced by Cornelius in Acts chapter 10. Cornelius didn't get saved until Acts 10:44. He was a good man, but lost, until he came to faith in Jesus Christ later on.

The 450 hellbound prophets of Baal during Elijah's time were all religious. The world is full of religious heathens (Matthew 15:8). Jesus confirmed that most of the world is going straight to Hell when they die (Luke 13:23-24).

When I am asked to pray publicly, I just keep it simple and try to talk to God as if no one else is there. Obviously that is not possible, and can be risky if you say something that you shouldn't say, but I always try to keep my prayer's length to a minimum. God already knows what we want and need even before we pray, so we don't need to pray lengthy prayers (Matthew 6:8).

Dr. John R. Rice was famous for teaching the truth, “Prayer is asking!” God wants us to cast all our cares upon Him (1st Peter 5:7). The Lord doesn't want us to be stressed out about anything, but to bring all of our needs and supplications (long term requests) to God in prayer (Philippians 4:6-8). God always hears our prayers, but we don't know what He will do. I agree with Pastor Curtis Hutson (1934-1995) that if we could see all that God sees, we would never question His motives again when He seems to ignore our prayers. God knows what is best!

I admit that I often feel like the meme below at the bottom of this page. It makes no sense to me oftentimes why God ignores the saints when we cry out to Him, but Jesus taught in Luke 18:1-8 that God the Father will oftentimes ignore His children to test us, because without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please Him (Hebrews 11:6). A faith must be tested.

The unjust judge ignored the widow simply because he couldn't have cared less about her as a hurting human being; but in sharp contrast, God ignores us because He does care and wants our faith to grow. Unshakable faith comes from having our faith shaken! Nothing shakes a believer's faith like unanswered prayers from our heavenly Father. What did Jesus say about that? Luke 18:1, “And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint.” Just keep on praying, whether it seems God answers or not.

I have lived long enough to know, having been born again for 47 years since age 12 in 1979, that God oftentimes answers my prayers in ways which I hadn't seen until I was able to look back in hindsight decades later. The old adage is true: When you cannot see the hand of God at work, trust the great heart of God. “God” is not mentioned one time in the Old Testament book of Esther, yet we are given a privileged look into the lives of God's saints, so that we can see that everything worked out for good in the end (Romans 15:4).