The Lord Appears to Solomon

First Kings chapter 9, verses 1 through 9, as the Lord appears to Solomon We've tried to take you very methodically and very purposefully through the life of Solomon since the time he was born, looking at every event in his life, trying to help you understand from a very practical standpoint how it is that God wants to use this man's life and what he learned and how he grew in our lives today, that we might be able to understand more of what God has for us

And so, as we go through it each and every week, and there's only 17 of them altogether, that we are able to look at each event in this man's life to be able to understand exactly what lessons God wants us to learn So tonight, we're going to look at what happens when the Lord appears to Solomon for the second time in his life It's rather unique at the time he appears, as we will see

First Kings chapter 9, verse number 1, now it came about when Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king's house and all that Solomon desired to do, that the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon The Lord said to him, I have heard your prayer and your supplication, which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house, which you have built by putting my name there forever, and my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually

As for you, if you will walk before me as your father David walked in integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and will keep my statutes and my ordinances, that I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, just as I promised to your father David, saying, You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel

But if you or your sons indeed turn away from following me, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes, which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, that I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them, and the house which I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight So Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples, and this house will become a heap of ruins

Everyone who passes by will be astonished and hiss and say, Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house? And they will say, because they forsook the Lord their God Who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and adopted other gods and worshiped them and served them Therefore, the Lord has brought all this adversity on them Three things I want you to see The first deals with the privilege, the second deal with the presence, and the third with the promise. I know I've changed the outline a little bit this evening, but that's where we want to go

We want to begin with, first of all, the privilege How privileged would it be for the Lord to appear to you? Now we know he did this in a dream, we know he did this at night, but the Lord appeared to Solomon, not just once, but twice, and will appear another time as we will see in the next couple of weeks But the Lord appears to Solomon, and the Lord is going to speak to Solomon and going to address the prayers of Solomon He's going to address the prayers of Solomon that we talked about last week, but he's going to do it, listen carefully, 13 years later

So Solomon has been waiting 13 years for God to answer, for God to say something, for God to respond to the prayer that he offered in dedication at the temple that we saw last week How do we know that? Well, we know it took seven years to finish the temple, right? It was 11 months after they finished the temple that the temple was dedicated If that's the case, really it's been 12 years, because it would be 13 years for him to finish his own house So after the temple was finished, he began to work on his house, it took 13 years

So a year after the temple was finished, it was dedicated, so 12 years later, God responds to the prayer of Solomon Now for the most part, we'd have a hard time with that, we can't even wait 12 seconds, 12 minutes, let alone 12 weeks, 12 months, let alone 12 years for God to respond But you see, he had to wait for the Lord to show up It's a great privilege for that to happen But let me tell you, we have a greater privilege, and that is we don't have to wait for the Lord to show up to speak to us God has already spoken to us He's given us his word

And so because he's given us his word already, everything he wants us to know, he's already said And so if we want God to speak to us, all we have to do is open the word and read what he's already said Remember, this is a living word, it's not a dead word It's the living word It's alive It's the God-breathed word And so it's got vigor and energy and excitement behind it And so when you open up the word of God, God is speaking to you God is speaking to you this evening

Not because I'm speaking to you, but when you open the word of God and you read it, we read the first nine verses, God is speaking to you God wants to address needs in your life God wants to deal with where you're at So when you open the word of God, God is actively speaking to you It's our job to be able to hear what he says by listening and then responding in obedience Now, how many of you have heard this phrase? God said it. I believe it That settles it If you've heard that phrase, raise your hand Okay God said it. I believe it That settles it That is a totally wrong statement Totally wrong

God said it That settles it, whether I believe it or not Right? If God said it, it's settled Now, I need to believe that But whether I believe it or not doesn't determine whether or not it's settled God said it That settles it And God has already spoken to us We have a great privilege Solomon had the first five books of the Old Testament He had the Pentateuch So we could go back and see what Moses had recorded by the inspiration of Scripture and begin to read that And Solomon himself would be involved in writing Scripture because he wrote Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, the Proverbs

And so we know that he was involved in writing Scripture God had used him to do that But we have all of the Old Testament, all of the New Testament, and God has revealed to us the beautiful mysteries that were concealed in the old and now revealed in the new So if I want to know what God has to say on anything at all, all I have to do is look and see what he's already said Because what he has said is what he means And the Lord said these words in John's Gospel in the 14th chapter when he said these words. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you

After a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me because I live You will live also In that day you will know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me and he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and I will disclose or manifest or reveal myself to him In other words, every time you open the Word of God and you hear the Word of God and you obey the commands of God because you love God, God promises to manifest himself to you God promises to reveal himself to you

That's why it would be the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 3.18, we talk about how we with unveiled face behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, right? Because when we open God's Word, God's glory is on display And when God is shining forth from his Word, it shines on us and we are able to see the glory of the Lord And we are being changed from one level of glory to the next level of glory, even as by the Spirit of God You see, that's why we maximize the reading of Scripture We maximize the memorization of Scripture

We maximize the fact that you can read God's Word, hear God's Word, listen to God's Word, because when you do, you're listening to God speak to you Because his Word speaks That's why the writer of Hebrews, remember he spent seven weeks on Hebrews 1, 1 and 2, talking to you about the fact that God has spoken God in his last days has spoken to us through his Son, Jesus Christ God in the last of these days, what days are those? The days in which God was speaking, he spoke to us through his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord And we sing that beautiful hymn, How Firm a Foundation

What more can he say than to you he has said? Right? What more can he say? He has nothing else to say He has said everything he needs to say for you and me The privilege that Solomon had, that God would come to him and speak to him, that God would appear to him in a dream, and God would communicate with him is a great thing But we have something greater than that Number one, because Christ lives in us, Christ in you, the hope of glory The Spirit of God resides within us

And the Spirit of God works in conjunction with the Scriptures so that when we open the Word of God, God's Spirit now uses the Word of God to convict us and to conform us to the image of the living God What a great thing that is Don't ever think that Abraham had a greater privilege than we did. I mean, he had to wait for God to show up and speak to him Right? Solomon had to wait for God to show up and speak But we? Not so We just open the Word of God, and God is actively speaking to us through his Word So important to understand that

That's the privilege I want you to see as we begin looking at this The second thing I want you to see is the presence Now it came about when Solomon finished building the house of the Lord and the king's house And all that Solomon desired to do, the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time as he appeared to him at Gibeon And the Lord said to him, I have heard your prayer and your supplication which you have made before me And I have consecrated this house which you have built by putting my name there forever My eyes and my heart will be there perpetually

That verse, verse number three, is loaded with so many theological truths for us to grasp and for us to come to grips and understand exactly what God is saying But the Lord says, I have heard Over in 2 Chronicles chapter 7, which is a parallel passage, God says this God says, verse 15, Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place His ears are attentive

Did you ever think that when you pray that sometimes God's too busy to listen to what you have to say? Or that God's too busy hearing the prayers of somebody else? Or God's too busy hearing the prayers of somebody more righteous than you are? Or that God only has, you know, two sets of ears so he can't hear every prayer, but he can, right? He says, my ear is attentive to your prayers And you must be thinking, or how could someone be thinking, wait a minute It's been 12 years since I prayed about what would happen when drought arrives on the scene

When we are devastated by destruction and disease because of our sin It's been 12 years since I talked to you about the attacks upon your people Israel It's been 12 years since I came to you and I prayed bowing my knees, opening my hands, looking toward the heavens Symbolizing not just my humility and my poverty and my expectancy, but my dependency upon the living God And now 12 years later you show up? What have you been doing for 12 years? That's not Solomon's response But think about that in your life and mine There are so many things that we go to the Lord about in prayer

And we almost demand that God answers And then we wonder, what's wrong? How come I haven't heard anything? How come God's not speaking? How come God's not showing me what to do? Remember in Luke 11 when the disciples had asked the Lord to teach them how to pray? So the Lord taught them We want to know John's disciples have been taught by John the Baptist on how to pray So Lord we want to know how to pray, so teach us how to pray And so Luke's account is a lot different than Matthew's account That is it's shorter and doesn't cover everything that Matthew's does

But after he teaches them how to pray, he then gives them a parable It says this Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him at midnight and says to him, Friend, lend me three loaves For a friend of mine has come to me from a journey and I have nothing set before him And from his side he answers and says, Do not bother me

The door has already been shut and my children and I are in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything. I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you Seek and you will find Knock and it will be opened to you For everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds And to him who knocks it will be opened Now suppose one of your fathers is asked by his son for a fish

He will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he asks for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? If you then being evil, and you are because you are depraved, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to you who ask him? The Lord wants the disciples to understand this Look, I am going to teach you how to pray But you have got to be persistent in your prayers You have got to keep seeking You have got to keep asking You have got to keep knocking

Do not just think because you offer up a prayer that like I am some kind of genie in a bottle and I am going to come down and just poof out of there and answer all your prayers God tests us God wants to know how serious we are He wants to know how true we are He wants to know if we are truly committed to Him And so He is going to wait Remember, God exists outside the realm of time We exist in the realm of time There are no clocks and calendars in glory So God is outside the realm of time And so He can sit and wait for as long as it takes Because a thousand years with the Lord is like one day

And one day is like a thousand years So the Lord wants them to understand You keep asking You keep seeking Because you have to persist And when you ask, I want to tell you what God does God gives you more than you can ever dream of He gives you the gift of the Spirit of God We will talk a little bit about this this coming Sunday Because it is very important to understand that the Jews were anticipating God's Spirit coming Based on the New Covenant, the Book of Ezekiel And God would put a new Spirit within them They would now walk after God and seek Him In other words, God says it this way

You ask for money and I am going to give you the bank. I am going to give you Wells Fargo Why? Because I am going to give you the Spirit of God You ask for comfort and I am going to give you the comforter Big difference, right? You want to be comforted but I am going to give you the comforter You want guidance? I am going to give you the Spirit that leads you into all truth and guides you every step of the way See? So He goes way beyond Same thing over in Luke chapter 18 When the Lord says these words, He is going to address it again But in a different way

He says, now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart In other words, men ought always to pray and not to faint So in other words, you either pray or you faint There is no in between If you are fainting, it is because you are not praying But if you are praying, you will not faint So men ought always to pray and not to faint In fact, the Bible says, Solomon says it Book of Proverbs, Proverbs 24 verse number 10 If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small Solomon knows that Solomon understands that

Men ought always to pray and not to faint Now the question is, why do we stop praying? Because God has an answer So we think We stop praying because there is a delay in God's response But a delay does not mean a denial Just because God delays, doesn't mean He says no And so we have to be able to, with patience, wait and trust the Lord to accomplish what He is going to do Because you see, while you are praying for whatever it is you are praying for, somebody else is praying for whatever it is they are praying for

Right? And God is in the process of working all things out after the counsel of His own will And so He gives a parable He says, in a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect men And there was a widow in that city And she kept coming to Him saying, give me legal protection for my opponent For a while, for a while, he was unwilling But afterward he said to himself, even though I do not fear God nor respect men, yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection Otherwise, by continually coming, she will wear me out

And the Lord said, hear what the unrighteous judge says Now will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night? And will He delay long over them? I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth? Will He find this kind of faith on the earth? Will He find the kind of person that does not give up or give in, but continues to seek, ask, and knock, and pleads with God to take an unjust situation and make it just, because He is the just judge

If an unjust judge will do that, just think of how the ultimate judge who is completely righteous will do that So here's Solomon It's been 12 years since he prayed And maybe he's prayed the same prayer for 12 years. I have no idea. I wouldn't say he did, but maybe he did But God now comes to him and says, I've heard In fact, my ears are attentive to your prayers My eyes are upon you, Solomon. I've listened. I've heard It's always good to know God hears God says, call upon me, and I will hear. I will listen And so we are to call upon Him all the time And Solomon does this

He says, I have consecrated this house that you have built by putting my name there forever. I've sanctified this place. I've set it apart as holy Now remember, when he brought the ark into the temple, and the cloud of glory came down and encompassed the temple, and the book of Exodus tells us that God himself is in the cloud, right? And God is saying to him that because my presence is here, I have set this place apart This is holy ground This is hallowed ground This is a special place Because I've sanctified it. I've hallowed this place Because this is my presence

This is where my name will be perpetually Now, we've talked to you about Mount Zion We've talked to you about Mount Moriah We've talked to you about the city of David We've talked to you about the city of truth We had pictures up on the screen to show you this It's very important to understand this God has made it very clear that this is my place He goes on and says in 2 Chronicles chapter 7, these words He says, verse 16, For now I have chosen and consecrated this house, that my name may be there forever, and my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually

Right? And he says to him very carefully in verse number 12, that I have chosen this place as a house of sacrifice God says, I've chosen the temple on top of Mount Moriah, which is Mount Zion, as a place for sacrifice And the question comes, why did God specifically choose that place for sacrifice? Simply because it's Mount Moriah And Moriah means, foreseen by God And in Genesis chapter 22, God tells Abraham, way back when, Listen, I will provide a land as a substitute, in a place foreseen by God, Mount Moriah Mount Moriah is Mount Calvary Mount Calvary is Mount Zion

They're all one and the same It's just one long mountain See? And God is preparing Israel for the ultimate substitute, for the ultimate sacrifice And so he says, when my name is here, I've consecrated this place, I've made it a holy place, because this is a place for adoration and for atonement It's a place where you will sacrifice for sins, because there's coming a day, where the ultimate sacrifice will be made on this same mount And therefore, you need to be prepared for it, because it's coming You need to understand it, because it's going to happen

And this becomes such a magnificent, a magnificent testimony to the power of God We told you before in Psalm 48, it says, Great is the Lord, and great is he to be praised in the city of our God, his holy mountain What's his holy mountain? Mount Zion What's Mount Zion? Mount Moriah What's Mount Moriah? Mount Calvary It's all one and the same Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion In the far north, the city of the great king, God in her palaces, has made himself known as a stronghold

And we told you that Mount Zion, Mount Moriah, is a specific hill, a sacred mountain, a significant city, a select people, a special place, and it's so special, God says this, that I wish I had time to go through all this with you But if you go through the Bible, you'll realize, that this place Zion, where the temple is located, the place that God designed for sacrifice, the place where God says, I will put my name here, and it will perpetually remain here forever It's a place where salvation is found

Psalm 14, 7, Psalm 53, verse number 6, where the Redeemer himself will come, Isaiah 59, 20, Zechariah 9, 9, where the cornerstone is laid, Isaiah 28, 16, where the Holy One of Israel is found, Isaiah 12, 6, Isaiah 16, verse number 14, where the trumpet will be blown, proclaiming the coming day of the Lord, Joel 2, verse number 1 and verse number 15, where the Lord reigns, Psalm 99, 1 and 2, Isaiah 24, 23, where the ransom will return with singing, Isaiah 35, 10, Isaiah 51, 11, a place which God will comfort, Isaiah 51, verse number 3 and Zechariah 1, 1, which will hear good tidings of peace and salvation, Isaiah 52, verse number 7, where the Lord will roar as a lion, Joel 3, 16, Amos 1, 2, from which the word of the Lord will come, Isaiah 2, 1 to 3, Micah 4, verse number 2, where the kingdom of the Messiah will come, Micah 4, verse number 8, Micah 5, verse number 2, where God's people and the angels call home, Hebrews 12, 22 to 23

Why do I say all that? Because you have to understand that this place is the most significant place in all the world Everything in Scripture centers on Mount Moriah Everything in Scripture points to Mount Zion, the city of David, the city of truth, the city of the great king Everything that takes place in Scripture points back to one particular place of real estate in the land of Israel, Mount Moriah And God says, I have placed my name here You've built a house for my name My name is already here, and I will remain here perpetually because this is a place of sacrifice

This is a place of atonement This is a place of adoration This is the place And Solomon is hearing this and coming to realize more and more the beauty of the house of the Lord and the place which it is located Now I say that simply because this We know, we know that God has not consecrated this building We understand that But we do know that God doesn't dwell in temples made with hands, but he does dwell in the hearts of his people That was a promise, that was a mystery that was hidden in the Old Testament but revealed in the New Christ in you, the hope of glory That's the great mystery

They knew God among them, God with them They understood Emmanuel They understood God above them, but God in them, they didn't get that But we get it Now, when God invades a life, when God invades a heart, he consecrates the heart He hallows the heart He sets the heart apart You were washed You were sanctified You were justified, right? When we were washed in the blood of the Lamb, we were set apart unto God for his purposes There was a specific consecration that God did because we are what? The temple of the Spirit of God God dwells now in us

God dwells now in his people, and we are the living stones being built up to the household of God And so God says, as he says to Israel and to Solomon, there's a place that I have consecrated It's the hearts of my people There is a specific responsibility that my people have to follow my word and to honor me And we, because we are the temple of the living God, are to live our lives in obedience to God We have been set apart unto God for his purposes Think about it that way And God is dwelling in you and me

That's why 1 Corinthians 6 talks about that our temples are the place, the consecrated place of the living God And we are to flee immorality because every sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the sexual sin is committed inside his body And inside his body is where the Lord himself dwells So it's so important to remember that and to understand the responsibility that you and I have to live clean and pure and holy lives That's why the Bible says, sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts

Set apart Christ as the priority in your hearts, that you might be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks of the hope that lies within, 1 Peter 3.15, right? And so we are in the process of sanctifying our lives, practically, but God has already set us apart positionally for his glory and for his honor And so as God says to Solomon, I will dwell there perpetually He says to you and me, I will dwell in you perpetually. I will be there forever because I'm going to take you home to be with me

Not only is there a great privilege that we have because God speaks to us through his word, but there's a great privilege because of the presence of God in our hearts and in our lives That's just a great and awesome thing Now, turn with me if you would, over to 2 Chronicles 7 Because 2 Chronicles 7 records something that 1 Kings 9 does not And this is the promise, point number three The promise And you know well, in verse number 13, if I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or I send pestilence among my people

By the way, who sends the pestilence? God does Who causes it not to rain? God does Who commands the locusts to devour the crops? God does That's very important Over in the book of Lamentations, 3rd chapter, these words are recorded Who is there who speaks when it comes to pass? Do you know anybody like that? That whatever they say, it just happens? There isn't anybody like that Except God

Who is there who speaks when it comes to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both good and ill go forth? Don't think for one moment that there isn't a tragedy that happens that God did not consciously permit to happen Either God's in charge of everything or God's in charge of nothing Either God controls everything or God controls nothing In Isaiah 45, verse number 7, God says that He is the author of calamity The author of calamity

In fact, Jeremiah goes on to say this in verse number 39, Why should any living mortal or any man offer complaint in view of his sins? Because man is a sinner, what complaint does he have to question a holy God that when he speaks it happens? It does And God says very clearly, Hey, listen, when the locusts come and eat your crops, when I say no rain and it doesn't rain, and it happens because I said it, and it happens because of your sin, He goes on to say that too in 2 Chronicles chapter 7

This is that very familiar verse in verse number 14, And my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land Now the prayer that God says the nation of Israel should do or the prescription for that prayer in verse number 14 is designed specifically for Israel, not for America But we quote it in America thinking that God is going to heal our land God never promised to heal our land God doesn't have a land covenant with America He doesn't have that

He only has a land covenant with one nation, that's Israel That's the only land covenant, it's called the Abrahamic covenant And he's designed the parameters of that land, right? And God says that if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, seek my face, pray, turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and I will heal their land

In other words, he's answering Solomon's prayer from the dedication 12 years ago when it says, when your people sin and it doesn't rain, when your people sin and they go to war and they lose, when your people sin and there is destruction and devastation in the land, Lord, if they come to you, if they forsake their sins, if they repent of their sins and they confess their sins and fall on their face before you, please, Lord, hear them

So 12 years later, God comes back and says, you know what? If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, seek my face, pray, turn from their wicked ways because the reason I sent the locusts, the reason I stopped the rain is because of their wicked ways. I will hear from heaven and I will heal their land God has a promise that he made to Abraham way, way, way back in the book of Genesis that God is faithful to keep to the very end and so God has only made one land covenant and that's with the nation of Israel

God never promised to heal the land of America or the land of England, okay, or the land of Africa or any other land Only one land and that's the land of Israel because that's where God presently dwells and that's where he's placed his name and that's where he will come back to rule and reign forever as King of Kings and Lord of Lords He will rule from the city of David on top of Mount Zion, Mount Moriah He will sit on his father's throne, David and he will rule and reign forever To do that, there's got to be a land and the land that he promised to Abraham in his ascendance, he will fulfill

So he made that promise And God says this, as for you, as for you, if you walk before me, verse 17 of 2nd Chronicles chapter 7, if you walk before me as your father David walked, even to do according to all that I have commanded you and will keep my statutes and my ordinances Now stop right there. A little different over in 1st Kings chapter 9, for there it says this, as for you, if you will walk before me as your father David walked in the integrity and uprightness, integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you and will keep my statutes and my ordinances

And people are going to ask, wait a minute, David didn't walk in the integrity of his heart David didn't walk with uprightness But what about Bathsheba? What about Uriah? How can you say that about David? When he committed gross sins, where he was a horrible father and didn't discipline his children Now remember, when God says this, doesn't talk about Bathsheba, doesn't talk about Uriah, because God has forgiven David Right? And he wants Solomon to follow David his father in one particular arena And that's an arena of confession and repentance

The difference between David and Solomon is that David genuinely repented and Solomon did not That's the difference That's why David was a man after God's own heart Remember, we've defined that for you in our study of David We talked about it here earlier in our text We look at Solomon's life and his father That David was a man after God's own heart because number one, he repented when he sinned and he never sought revenge on those who came against him That's why he was a man after God's own heart Those two qualities make you a man after God's own heart

You don't take things into your own hands and seek vengeance and you are a man who humbly confesses his sins and turns from his sins And the Lord, when speaking to Solomon, wants him to understand that this is what you need to do And this is good for all of us Listen, we need to model to our children how to live our lives, right? How to live godly lives That's what we're supposed to do as fathers and mothers But the problem is none of us are perfect We all sin

But that's okay because when the Bible talks about modeling or imitating, okay, and following, we need to understand this, that modeling is defined not by living a life of perfection, but modeling a biblical response to all of my imperfections See the difference? It's modeling a biblical response to all of my imperfections When I sin, when I fall, when I falter and fail, what's my response? Do I seek the face of the Lord? Do I humble myself before Him? Do I truly repent of my sins? So that I am modeling to my children how it is they are to respond when they sin and when they fall

That's so important We need to model a biblical response to all of our imperfections The problem comes when we don't do that Because then things just get blown out of proportion David modeled that to Solomon He modeled that to a nation That's how he lived his life That's how God wants us to live our lives because none of us are perfect All of us are going to sin But when you sin, how do you respond? Do you go to the Lord? Do you seek His face? Do you bow before Him in humble submission and seek forgiveness? Because you've confessed your sins

The blessed man is not the one who covers his transgression but confesses and forsakes his sin That's the blessed man That's the way all of us need to be So the Lord says, I want you to walk in the integrity of your heart. I want you to walk in uprightness, Solomon That's what your father did That's what I need you to do And then he says this Oh, by the way, he says, All that I've commanded you to keep my statutes and ordinances Remember, in Deuteronomy 17, he's supposed to write the law of the Lord every day He's supposed to read the law of the Lord every day

He's supposed to observe the law of the Lord in his daily life That was the order of the king That's what he was supposed to do And at this point, we can say that Solomon is probably doing that He is writing the law of the Lord He is obeying the law of the Lord He wants to do what God has said Solomon's problem will come when he stops doing what God says, like you and me Our problems come when we stop listening Our problems come when we stop doing what God says When Solomon stops that, his problems explode But right now, he's hearing the word of the Lord He's writing the word of the Lord

He's fulfilling Deuteronomy 17 And God says, I want you to continue to do that. I want you to observe my commandments and my statutes. I want you to walk after me And he says this, but if you turn away and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, because if you worship something else, you serve them If you serve them, you worship them Then I will uproot you from my land, which I have given you Isn't that good? It's my land It's God's land That's so good

Of course, the Lord owns everything, right? He's in charge of everything But he calls it my land He calls it their land at times, because he gave it to them But it's really my land, he says. I will uproot you from my land, which I have given you And this house, which I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples

As for this house, which was exalted, those who purchase by it will be astonished and say, why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house? And they will say, because they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them from the land of Egypt and they adopted of the gods and worshiped them and served them Therefore, he has brought all this adversity upon them God says, this is what I want you to do, Solomon But, remember those but-ologies? They loom large in Scripture

If you, plural, your people Israel, you don't follow after me, you don't walk in my statues, you go after other gods and serve them, I will uproot you from my land It could be 200 years after Solomon, in which Assyria came and defeated the northern kingdom, because the kingdom would be divided after Solomon's death. A kingdom that had 19 different kings and every one of them was evil And so, about 200 years after Solomon's death, in 722 BC, Syrians would come in and plunder the northern kingdom and take them into captivity

It would be 345 years after Solomon's death, which Nebuchadnezzar would come in and plunder the southern kingdom, called Judah The northern kingdom was called Israel, the southern kingdom was called Judah Plunder them, destroy the temple, and they'd be taken off into captivity for 70 years, called the Babylonian Captivity in the Nebuchadnezzar It happened exactly as God said And God warned them God told them Oh, by the way, he only reiterated what Moses said in the book of Deuteronomy, the 29th chapter

And you think, why would God deal with him so severely? Remember, God's presence was among his people The glory of the temple of Israel And that cloud of glory was there, manifesting the presence of God God had done so much in Israel's life God had given them all the light they needed And yet, when they would turn their back on him and sin against him, in spite of overwhelming evidence of the presence of God among them, and God working in them, they rebelled And God says, I'm going to warn you in advance. I'm going to warn you 400 years before it happens Because it's going to happen

He didn't tell Stalin what was going to happen He just gave him the warning And that's why, that's why the Hebrew Bible ends with the book of 2 Chronicles. 2 Chronicles chapter 36 Well, it says in verse number 11 of 2 Chronicles 36, Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king, and he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem He did evil in the sight of the Lord, his God He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke for the Lord He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear allegiance by God

But he stiffened his neck, hardened his heart against turning to the Lord God of Israel And furthermore, all the officials of the priests and the people were very unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations, and they defiled the house of the Lord, which he had sanctified in Jerusalem The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place

But they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised his words, scoffed at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, until there was no remedy That's sad That's why when you go to what's commonly called the wedding wall, it's really the western wall. I call it the waiting wall, because they're waiting for the Messiah to come, although he's already been here once And they do all those gyrations by moving back and forth, wailing against that wall, because when people walk by, they ask, what has happened here? Because God said that's what they would ask

Why is this place in ruins? What happened? The answer is they forsook their God The answer is they turned away from God And God would send messenger after messenger after messenger And the point of all this is this, that sometimes we come and we hear God's word week after week after week, and God speaks to us through his word, because that's what God does He uses his word to convict us, to challenge us, and to charge us to live for him And so maybe you're coming, you're hearing the word of God on Wednesdays and Sundays, and you keep hearing it, but you don't obey it You don't follow it

In essence, you mock it Yet because of God's compassion, he allows you to live He might even allow you to prosper He might even allow great things to happen in your life But if you continue to stiffen your neck and harden your heart, like Israel, you become broken without remedy And by the way, Solomon would say that in the book of Proverbs Proverbs chapter 29 Solomon did say, a man who hardens his neck after much reproof will suddenly be broken beyond remedy Those are the exact words that God uses in 2 Chronicles 36 Solomon knows what God has said

And so when he writes the Proverbs early on in his ministry, now remember, remember, it's been at least 20 years since his ministry has started More than that, because it took 7 years to build the temple, another 13 to build his house, that's 20 years He was reigning before that, so maybe in the year 25, maybe even close to the year 30 of his kingship And he wrote Proverbs 29 verse number 1 early on as king of Israel But the Lord would use those words in 2 Chronicles 36 to describe a nation that had turned their backs on God Isn't that amazing? By the way, Judah had 20 kings

The southern kingdom had 20 kings The northern kingdom had 19 kings All of them were evil The southern kingdom had 20 kings, and 8 of them were good Only 8 Only 8 were good Imagine that. 39 kings in Israel, total, and 8 were good That's it And yet God would send prophets, God would send judges, God would send men to speak to Israel, and they would not listen The challenge for you and me simply is this God doesn't show up and speak to us, doesn't have to because He's in us, but He's given us His Word, and every time we open it, He speaks Every time you hear it preached, He's speaking

And tonight, He's speaking to every one of us to make sure that we live in obedience to the Word of the Lord You know, God doesn't make the Christian life so hard that we can't accomplish what He's asked us to do He's given us the spirit to do that Right? That's what the promise of the New Covenant was. I will put my spirit within them, and they will keep my Word, and they will walk in my ways. I mean, He's given us every tool necessary to do that

And yet, so many times, we just turn our backs away from what God has said and go off and do our own thing and wonder why our world is crumbling around us We need to be the kind of people that seek the face of God, long to live for His glory, and long to put Him on display And may God give us the grace to do that Let's pray together Father, we thank You, Lord, for tonight We thank You, Lord, for the opportunity to be here Lord, every time Your Word is opened, You have something to say You have something to say to every one of us this evening

My prayer is that all of us, including myself, would listen intently You have promised us that You have heard the prayers of Solomon You've heard our prayers You want us to keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking Because You're waiting You want us to be persistent That's seeking Your face But, Lord, You want us to be obedient to Your Word and to follow You wholeheartedly May we do that with a cheerful heart for the glory of Your kingdom In Jesus' name, amen.