"The
King Intercedes!" • 12.18.16 • Calvary Christian
Fellowship, Sunday Morning Service
Intro.
- We closed our study last week with a vision
of the glory of God filling the Temple. Israel had been left without this
particular witness since the day that King Saul died.
- "Ichabod!" "The glory is
departed," cried the nation. Nearly 50 years removed and the glorious
Temple is built. When God inhabited the inner sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, it
was an event.
- The priests have gone out of the building and
Solomon stands now between the presence of the Lord and the people of God who
are assembled en masse.
- I'm not sure that he meant to be in this
position, but when the people remained, he prayed out the longest public prayer
recorded in the Bible. Let's take a look at it beginning in verse 14.
Text
• I Kings 8:14-16 : "Then the king
turned around and blessed the whole assembly of Israel, while all the assembly
of Israel was standing. And he said: 'Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who
spoke with His mouth to my father David, and with His hand has fulfilled it,
saying, ‘Since
the day that I brought My people Israel out of Egypt, I have chosen no city
from any tribe of Israel in which to build a house, that My name might be
there; but I chose David to be over My people Israel.’" : Solomon begins with a tribute to the
Lord's faithfulness in fulfilling His promise to his Father David. Consider the
timing of this passage.
- Chapter 6:1
marks the beginning of the construction of the Temple as the 480th year from
the night of the Passover.
- Here in the 487th year, around Rosh Hoshanah,
the Jewish new year, in the 7th month of Ethinim, Solomon has affirmed that God
has been true to His Word!
- Solomon is making reference to the conversation
that God had with David in II Samuel 7,
promising both an heir and ultimately the Messiah through his line!
- This day and the Lord's action of filling the
Temple with His shekinah glory inaugurated a permanent association with the
city of Jerusalem and the people of Israel.
- Solomon, speaking for the people of Israel,
acknowledges that God has indeed settled among His own people there in the land
of Israel.
- His promise wasn't complete until He Himself
had a home in Israel. It has now come to pass.
- God spoke it, promised it with His mouth and
then brought it to pass in time. There isn't any mysticism involved. God's
written and promised word became an historical event.
- People often wonder why we consider the Bible
to be superior to other religious works.
- They will point to the involvement of men,
the supposed "errors" or contradictions that they haven't themselves
discovered. In the end, what Solomon discloses here makes it so.
- God has made promises and they have become
historically accurate events in time, witnessed and accounted. Solomon was
living it at this very moment. Verse 17.
• I Kings 8:17-21 : "Now it was in the
heart of my father David to build a temple for the name of the Lord God of Israel. But the Lord said to my father
David, ‘Whereas it was in your heart to build a temple for My name, you did
well that it was in your heart. Nevertheless you shall not build the temple,
but your son who will come from your body, he shall build the temple for My
name.’ So
the Lord has fulfilled His
word which He spoke; and I have filled the position of my father David, and sit
on the throne of Israel, as the Lord promised; and I have built a temple for the
name of the Lord God of Israel. And there I have
made a place for the ark, in which is the covenant of the Lord which He made with
our fathers, when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.'" : Beyond God's faithful actions toward
Israel, Solomon is not remiss in noting God's faithfulness to his family.
- I really appreciate Solomon's words here.
He's not willing to take the credit for this project. We call the Temple, "Solomon's
Temple," but it is, in almost every way, "David's Temple."
- King David had wanted to be the one to build
the Temple but was not allowed to do so. I
Chronicles 22:7,8 records David's acknowledgement that bloody hands kept
him from doing it.
- However, When God rejected David's
involvement in construction, David didn't just shrink away in self-pity. He
received the plans for the Temple and stored away his treasure to pay for it!
- I
Chronicles 28:11-21 records the lengths that David went to. His only fault
was that he was a man of war. Solomon, however, was a man of peace and the man
for the job!
- What an amazing thing to consider for
Solomon. You and I know of prophecies that have been fulfilled, but none which hinge
upon us personally. Solomon is the fulfillment of that prophecy.
- Solomon sees this entire episode as being
relevant to his family personally, but also to the nation of Israel dating back
to the Exodus generally. Verse 22.
• I Kings 8:22-26 : "Then Solomon stood
before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of
Israel, and spread out his hands toward heaven; and he said: 'Lord God of Israel,
there is no God in heaven above or on earth below like You, who keep Your
covenant and mercy with Your servants who walk before You with all their
hearts. You
have kept what You promised Your servant David my father; You have both spoken
with Your mouth and fulfilled it with Your hand, as it is this day. Therefore, Lord God of Israel, now
keep what You promised Your servant David my father, saying, ‘You shall not
fail to have a man sit before Me on the throne of Israel, only if your sons
take heed to their way, that they walk before Me as you have walked before Me.’
And
now I pray, O God of Israel, let Your word come true, which You have spoken to
Your servant David my father." : Solomon began in a standing
position, but according to verse 54,
at some point, he fell to his knees and prayed with his hand uplifted. This is
Solomon's greatest moment.
- If the story ended with this picture, he
would have reached an apex that no other King could have matched!
- His public prayer to God reflects an
understanding of the polytheistic plurality that was the norm for the day. God
was unlike any of the other gods of the Ancient Near east.
- Other nations held to a myriad of gods, while
some nations believed in localized deities.
- Solomon's words reflect that the God of
Israel inhabited every realm equally! Additionally, He also showed Himself to
have a character that couldn't be altered.
- He kept His covenant and acted in mercy
toward all that walked before Him with their whole hearts. He wasn't
capricious. He didn't change with the seasons, but was consistent in His
character.
- Alongside of this, notice the phrase, "You have both spoken with Your mouth and
fulfilled it with Your hand, as it is this day." God is a transcendant
being, not limited to our time and space.
- Yet, He is imminent, speaking forth His Word
personally to His people and performing it in time and space! What other god
could do this? The answer is none!
- No other god exists, that can either speak or
act. God has done both! Because of that reality, Solomon asks God to keep what
He had promised. He prayed, "Lord, keep to your own word!"
- That is a prayer that God loves His people to
pray! It's a good habit to pray with the statement, "God, you said you
would do this." He doesn't mind being held to His own Word!
• I Kings 8:27-30 : "But will God indeed
dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain
You. How much less this temple which I have built! Yet regard the
prayer of Your servant and his supplication, O Lord my God, and listen
to the cry and the prayer which Your servant is praying before You today: that Your eyes may
be open toward this temple night and day, toward the place of which You said,
‘My name shall be there,’ that You may hear the prayer which Your servant makes
toward this place. And may You hear the supplication of Your
servant and of Your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. Hear in
heaven Your dwelling place; and when You hear, forgive." : "The
heaven of heavens cannot contain you!"
- After God's glory filled the Temple, Solomon
realized the insignificance of his efforts. Can you imagine what that must have
felt like?
- You've spent seven years, billions of
dollars, and nearly a million people's backs to bring this Temple into
existence, only to find out on Day 1 that it wasn't going to be enough!
- God cannot truly dwell there. He is more
grand than the entirety of His creation!
- Our galaxy, the Milky Way, by itself is
estimated to be 93 billion light years in diameter! That is one of an estimated
200 billion galaxies in the known universe, some of equal or greater size!
- All of heaven cannot contatin Him! Solomon
knows that the Temple didn't obligate God to a certain locality. Yet, he calls
out to God to regard this prayer.
- Listen to this cry. Let your eyes be open.
Hear the supplication of Your servant. Act in mercy!
- As magnificent as God's person is, His
willingness to hear His people is far more impressive! God's people will have
access to the God of the Universe by prayer and supplication!
- When they cry out to God, Solomon prays that
He will hear and then forgive! He is not only a transcendant Being, with
imminent qualities. He is a moral Judge with a desire to forgive!
- This sends Solomon into a long series of
requests related to Israel's tendencies toward sin. We'll take a look at the
first situation as an example of what is to follow.
- Remember that this is precipitated by the
fact that the holiest men in Israel, the priests, were unable to stand before
the presence of God as He enveloped the Temple.
- How much more would the sin of the average
Israelite be exposed? The Temple accentuated that wide chasm between God's
Holiness and man's sinfulness. Verse 31.
• I Kings 8:31,32 : "When anyone sins against his
neighbor, and is forced to take an oath, and comes and takes an oath before
Your altar in this temple, then hear in heaven, and act, and judge Your servants,
condemning the wicked, bringing his way on his head, and justifying the
righteous by giving him according to his righteousness." : Notice first the inevitability. "When" anyone sins.
(v.31) You'll see a repitition of
this concept in the following verses.
-
God's presence within the Temple was not going to stop His people from sinning!
-
Don't you think that would have been the case? Yet, His remote presence here
only reveals greater sin!
-
Each of the following circumstances begins with inevitability and deals with
specific areas of sin. In this first case, there is a personal moral failing
between individuals.
-
This phrase is fairly wide in it's scope. It could be anything from a dispute
over property to accusations regarding thievery (Exodus 22) or adultery. (Numbers
5)
-
In the land of Israel, even with the Monarchy in place, these questionable
civil matters came before the judges, the Priests, who were then able to confer
with the Lord for a definite answer.
-
A person willing to take an oath was proclaiming his or her innocence, but
confirmation would be required. Solomon is asking that God would set things in
proper order.
-
He asks God to "hear in heaven and act" meaning here that He would
make clear who should be condemned and who should be vindicated.
-
Either judgment would be the natural outcome of whatever choice had been made,
either for wickedness or righteousness. Every judgement of God is simply that
acknowledgment.
-
Whatever way you have chosen to walk will yield a certain outcome that God will
make clear for all to see on that Day.
-
The Temple was a reminder to all that God was a God of Justice. He would set
things in their proper order. With God, there is hope for restitution for all
victims. Verse 33.
• I Kings 8:33-40 : "When Your people Israel are
defeated before an enemy because they have sinned against You, and when they
turn back to You and confess Your name, and pray and make supplication to You
in this temple, then
hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of Your people Israel, and bring them back
to the land which You gave to their fathers. When the heavens are shut up and
there is no rain because they have sinned against You, when they pray toward
this place and confess Your name, and turn from their sin because You afflict
them, then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin
of Your servants, Your people Israel, that You may teach them the good way in
which they should walk; and send rain on Your land which You have given to Your
people as an inheritance. When there is famine
in the land, pestilence or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers; when
their enemy besieges them in the land of their cities; whatever plague or
whatever sickness there is; whatever prayer,
whatever supplication is made by anyone, or by all Your people Israel, when
each one knows the plague of his own heart, and spreads out his hands toward
this temple: then hear in heaven Your dwelling
place, and forgive, and act, and give to everyone according to all his ways,
whose heart You know (for You alone know the hearts of all the sons of men), that they may fear You all the days that they live in the
land which You gave to our fathers." : Every
one of these outcomes are directly related to Israelite disobedience to the law
that governed them specifically. These are natural consequences of their
behavior.
-
Defeat before an enemy, drought and famine are designated consequences for sin in
Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28.
-
These were the terms and conditions that their sin would bring upon them, that
Israel agreed to as a nation before God. But notice also the hope and the
reason why these conditions came to be.
-
Leviticus 26 is especially
enlightening on this point. God tells the people of Israel of all the dreadful
things that will come upon them, but that He allows them so that they might be
reformed.
-
If the people were defeated, or there was drought, or famine, there is a chance
for them, not to recover, but to repent.
-
"When they turn back to you," (v.33)
or "when they pray toward this place." (v.35)
-
Verse 38 says it so well: "When each one knows the plague of his own
heart and spreads out his hands toward the Temple."
-
Repentance is an action which stems from a person refusing to place the blame
on anyone other than themself! Solomon is praying that his people will come to
a place of looking back to God.
-
The Temple represents the awesome power of God's Holiness, but it also
represents His desire to commune with them in right relationship!
-
Solomon is praying, "May their repentance be just as great as their
sin!" Indeed, that is the possibility and within these words, we gain a
great set of thoughts that describe genuine repentance.
-
First, it is a turning back from sin. It is a willingness to look and seek help
again from the presence of God! It is to see that you are the problem in the
relationship!
-
God hasn't changed. He hasn't looked away, but there is a plague in your own
heart which keeps you from spreading out your hands to the proverbial Temple!
-
If Israel would do this, Solomon prays that the Lord would then respond. Will
they view their failure in defeat as a lapse in spiritual condition?
-
Will they look upon their drought or their famine as symptoms of their sinful
lives? Unfortunately, as we have seen, that was not always the case.
-
Recall to mind our study through the book of Judges and the increasing periods of time where Israel would settle
in their sin and not look toward the Lord.
-
If they did and then they looked to the Lord in repentance, Solomon asks that would
hear them and forgive! What other God could be approached like this?
-
The people have sinned. Their repentance is an acknowledgement of that sin. At
that acknowledgment, at that confession, God acts in mercy!
-
One of the lexical definition of the Hebrew word "salakh" is to show
oneself gentle! This is how Solomon expected God to act and this was never in
doubt!
-
Even in the most dire warnings of God's judgment in the Old Testament, there is
almost universally a word of hope that God could extend forgiveness! That is
what He always wants to do!
•
I Kings 8:41-43 : "Moreover, concerning a foreigner,
who is not of Your people Israel, but has come from a far country for Your
name’s sake (for
they will hear of Your great name and Your strong hand and Your outstretched
arm), when he comes and prays toward this temple, hear in heaven Your dwelling place,
and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to You, that all peoples
of the earth may know Your name and fear You, as do Your people Israel, and
that they may know that this temple which I have built is called by Your name." : From the time of the Exodus, Israel has been host to various
foreign, non-Israelite people.
-
There will be those that we will see soon, whose lives will be radically
impacted by the presence of God, who will not be Jewish. They will come simply
because of His reputation.
-
"I've heard of His great Name." "I've seen first hand, His
ability to work in mighty ways!" Today, that will often be the case
because of your testimony!
-
In those days, it would be because of the continued health and expansion of
Israel's Kingdom and the glorious Temple that sat in the center of it!
-
The beautiful comment here is that this foreigner will be a foreigner who comes
and prays toward this Temple. He will seek the God of the people of Israel. He
will reach toward Him.
-
Solomon, who could believe such a thing? The Temple is for the people of
Israel, not for foreigners. Sure maybe foreigners who convert to Judaism, but
not simply foreigners!
-
Excuse Solomon, but he makes no such comment! They are foreigners and will be
foreigners who call out to the Lord. What is Solomon's request? Hear them and
do according to all they ask!
-
Why? That all the nations, the Gentiles of the earth may know your Name.
Literally, that they may know of God's reputation and that they might reverance
God as Israel has!
-
The Temple belonged in Israel and would primarily benefit those who lived in
Israel.
-
But the God of the Temple is the God of Creation and the God that would receive
any willing to call upon Him, Jew or Gentile!
Conclusion
- What a
picture that we have before us! The presence of God Almighty has filled the
Temple and every priest has walked out because of their own sinfulness.
- Standing, at
least initially, between the Presence and the people is the King, the Son of
David, praying for the ones that will look toward the Lord.
- There will be
Israelite men and women who will sin and come with repentant hearts, looking
for restoration. There will be Gentile men and women, desperate for help,
looking for salvation.
- Both will
find what they are looking for here. Is that not still the case today!? Whether
they be Jewish or Gentile, all that call upon the Name of the Lord, shall be
saved!
- All who
repent will be restored and all who cry out will be regenerated. None will be
turned away who look toward the true Temple, Jesus Christ!
- Because of
His Righteousness, those in Him will stand before God with gladness, not fear.
- And none will
ever be lost because the greater Son of David stands to intercede on behalf of
His people for all eternity, not in a Temple made with hands, but in the very
presence of Father God!