II Chronicles 6 – 7 and Psalm 136
The Temple has been built and Solomon has prayed, offering the Temple to the Lord as “a place where you can live forever.” II Chronicles 6 and 7 covers some of the same events as we studied in I Kings 8 yesterday. Solomon recognized that “even the highest heavens” could not contain God, much less the Temple he built.
Did you notice that when Solomon prayed before the congregation, he did not stand in front of a podium, but “knelt in front of the entire community of Israel and lifted his hands toward heaven.” In his prayer, Solomon rehearses the goodness of God and asks that the Lord, the God of Israel would fulfill his promise to his servant David.
He talks about all of the terrible things that could happen: if someone wrongs another person, if Israel is defeated by its enemies, it the skies are shut up and there is no rain, if there is a famine in the land or a plague or crop disease or locust attacks or caterpillar attacks, or if enemies are besieging Israel’s towns. Yesterday, we talked about II Chronicles 7:14 – Solomon wanted God’s promise that if any of the above terrible things happened, “if your people Israel pray about their troubles or sorrow, raising their hands toward this Temple, the hear from heaven where you live, and forgive.”
We can see from this that Solomon was not building this Temple to honor himself, but he saw it as a place to which individuals and tribes and nations could turn to plead for God’s mercy and forgiveness. He must have known that in the future people would be exiled; he even spoke of the turning in repentance during that exile and praying and being allowed to return from the land of their captivity.
I particularly love II Chronicles 6:40 – “O my God, may your eyes be open and your ears attentive to all the prayers made to you in this place.”
And talk about a fireworks display. After Solomon finished praying, “fire flashed down from heaven and burned up the burnt offerings and sacrifices, and the glorious presence of the Lord filled the Temple.” In fact, priests couldn’t even enter the Temple because of the presence of the Lord.
Psalm 136, which was chosen to accompany the II Chronicles 6 – 7 reading is so appropriate. Just as the priests are recorded as having given thanks to the Lord for he is good, so this Psalm is filled with reasons to give thanks to the Lord, with each verse ending in “His faithful love endures forever.”
Tomorrow, it’s Psalm 134, 146, 147. 148, 149, and 150.
Government Gone Wild posted this on Facebook today:
The food stamp program (by the U.S.D.A) is happy to be distributing the greatest amount of free meals and food stamps ever. Meanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the U.S. Dept of the Interior, asks us to "Not Feed The Animals" because they grow dependent on handouts and not learn to take care of themselves. Click LIKE if you think Congress WANTS you dependent on government! (emphasis is mine … K)
How true it is.
Until next time…
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