If you've got a copy of the scriptures and you
want to follow along, we'll be in the Old Testament
this morning, 1 Kings chapter 8. When we go somewhere
one time, we do have to weigh a little bit of
background and context to sort of understand
how we got here and what it is we want to see.
Today we take our text here in the Old Testament.
And this book of 1 Kings is a book that will
trace Israel's history from the death of King
David, who was the most faithful king that Israel
had. had through the division of the kingdom,
and it ultimately points to God's faithfulness
to His covenant promises despite Israel's repeated
failures. And what we want to see specifically
today is this is a specific part of Scripture
that after the temple had been built, Solomon
offers a prayer of dedication at the completion
of the temple. Now, you may remember, Moses was
first given instructions regarding the tabernacle
that would be a place where God's presence would
reside there in the wilderness and in those wanderings.
But eventually, King David desired to build a
house for the Lord. And even though he was very
zealous in that, and he was very sincere, the
Lord said, you will not build a house for me,
but one of your sons will. And even though David
would not build the house, he did lay up great
riches. for that temple to one day be built.
We're told in 1 Kings chapter 6 that the construction
of the temple began in Solomon's fourth year
as he reigned and it was completed in the 11th
year, 480 years after the Israelites had left
Egypt. So a long time from the time they had
left Egypt till this permanent The temple was
built for the Lord's presence to dwell. And during
this time of temple construction, we don't have
time to go through it all, but Solomon employed
80 ,000 stone cutters, the scriptures tell us,
to cut every stone outside the temple, bring
it in, and fit it perfectly in place. And if
it did not fit perfectly in place, it was cast
off. There was not to be the sound of a hammer
or chisel within the walls of the temple. He
brought cedars in from Lebanon and had many skilled
tradesmen to do gold. overlays and many skilled
jobs. Now in today's text we see specifically
this prayer of dedication that Solomon offers
in front of all Israel. to the one true God of
the universe. And a prayer of dedication in and
of itself, not something we do a lot, is really
it's a heartfelt invocation to God. It expresses
commitment and surrender to His will. It's used
to dedicate oneself for a building like this
temple to specific endeavors in God's service.
It acknowledges His sovereignty. And it's not
a prayer that is merely ritualistic, but it's
a profound declaration of faith, dependence,
and showing allegiance upon the Lord. Now as
we work our way through the text, we will see
Solomon acknowledge that God had kept his word,
allowing him to succeed his father David as king.
and to build a temple there in Jerusalem. But
Solomon also will recognize that no earthly building
can contain the infinite God. Yet he asked God
paradoxically and graciously to place his name
there, that the Lord might hear the prayers of
his people that are offered toward the temple.
And this event had fulfilled a promise that God
had made to David. And Solomon appraises the
Lord saying that he has no equal. Now, At some
point, most of us have been to some sort of ceremony,
grand ceremony, the opening of a business, a
building, a school, a stadium, something like
that when a great work is completed. And you've
probably been to some sort of dedication like
that. Sometimes there is a ribbon cutting. It
can be a very grand affair. There's food and
balloons and celebration and all this, but...
Today, as Solomon dedicates his temple, we don't
see a ribbon cutting. We don't see a lot of these
things we would do today. He first raises his
hands and offers praise to the Lord for the work
that has been completed. Look with me, first
of all, in verses 22, 23, and 24. 1 Kings chapter
8, verse 22, 24. 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, a God who keeps your covenant and mercy
with your servants who walk before you with all
their hearts. You have kept what you promised
to your servant, David, my father. You have both
spoken with your mouth and fulfilled it with
your hand as it is. this day. The first thing
we see is the faithfulness of God. And we see
here at this time of temple dedication, Solomon
begins to pray before all of Israel. And the
prayer of Solomon here in its entirety is one
of the longest prayers in the Bible. And Solomon
gives us a good biblical model for prayer here
in this dedication that we'll see this morning,
not just for dedicated church building, but also
in the day -to -day throws of our lives. The
opening words are of adoration and praise as
he starts. It says he stood before the altar
of the Lord in the presence of all Israel. And
Solomon opens his prayer by praising God for
who He is. He calls Him by His covenant name.
In your Bible, you will see capital L -O -R -D.
In the Old Testament, anytime you see capital
L -O -R -D, that is Yahweh. That was the original
word. That is God's covenant name. And when He
says, Lord Yahweh, God of the covenant, there
is no one like You. You are a covenant -keeping
God and you have a steadfast love for your covenant
people. Solomon addresses God as the Lord, acknowledging
His sovereignty over heaven and over the earth.
He specifically identifies Him here. He says,
God of Israel. God is not abstract. He is not
distant. He is not far off. Rather, He is near
to His people. He has a personal relationship
with His people. If you are a believer, He is
your God. As a church, we would profess that
He is our God. And this is a starting point for
all prayer, that we acknowledge God for who He
is before we start jumping into what we need
and the goings on of our lives. Solomon goes
on to speak of the incomparability of God. He
said that the Lord is without parallel. Wonderful
language. There is no one else like Him. He is
the one only true deity of the cosmos. Israel's
enemies on every side had many so -called gods.
But they were not in the same category as the
true and living God, the one and only, as Solomon
would go on to say. No one else can we trust
to satisfy the longings of our souls or take
care of our physical needs. There is no other
God like Him, Solomon said, on earth beneath
or in heaven above. And because of that, we would
proclaim and attest that there is no other being
deserving of our worship than the one true God
of heaven. There is no God like him at all, Solomon
said. He alone is the one true God. But Solomon
was not the first to pray this way. This is wonderful.
In fact, Israel had been doing so from the time
of Moses. If we went back to Deuteronomy chapter
4 verse 39, we would see Moses writing there,
Therefore know this day. and consider it in your
heart that the Lord Himself is God in heaven.
Above and on the earth beneath there is no other.
Solomon's father David echoed very similar words
in Psalm 86, where David said, Among the gods
there is none like you, O Lord, nor are there
any works like your works. All nations whom you
have made shall come and worship before you,
O Lord, and they shall glorify your name, for
you are great. do wondrous things, you alone
are God." Now when we pray, we would do well
to model after what we have seen so far. Our
prayer should start with praising God for who
He is. We should attest that He is holy, that
He is righteous, that He is high, that He is
above the heavens, that He is merciful, that
He is good, that He is ever faithful to His people.
And then we praise Him for what He has done.
past tense, what he is doing, present tense,
and what he has said he is going to do in the
future, future tense. Solomon goes on to say
that the Lord is faithful. Specifically, in this
instance of temple dedication, God had faithfully
promised David that one of his sons would not
only ascend to the throne, but would build a
temple that David had first desired to build
for the Lord. David said, here I am. living in
this wonderful house, Lord, and you are still
dwelling in a tent. Shame on me." And the Lord
said, David, it's a wonderful desire, but you
will not be the one to build my house. One of
your sons will. Our Lord is unique in His steadfast
covenantal love, which is His faithfulness to
fulfill all the promises that He has vowed. to
keep, promises that were made and affirmed with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If I was to say to
you, Church, God has been ever faithful, you
would respond, amen. But let's qualify that a
little bit. Let's qualify the question. God promised
to establish a royal dynasty that endures to
this day through Jesus Christ, David's royal
son. Philip Riken said in his commentary, no
other God had ever promised anyone an eternal
kingship and then delivered on that promise,
except God, the one and only. He is a promise
-keeping God who always keeps His word to His
people. What God says, He will do. What God says,
He delivers. Solomon said, what you've said with
your mouth, you have delivered with your hand.
That there was no halfway of keeping that promise.
What God has said in His word, He will do. In
fact, Solomon's praise should be our praise.
Jesus said in John 20, 17, I am ascending to
my Father and your Father, to my God and to your
God. Through faith in Christ, we have a personal
relationship with the God of the universe. He
is our God. We are His people, the sheep of His
hand, the psalmist said, and we lay in His pastures.
God not only kept His promise of a royal line,
but also to provide a Savior by sending His very
own dear Son to die on the cross for our sins,
and not just to die on the cross for our sins,
but also to raise Him up from the grave with
the power of eternal life. We praise God every
time we pray, because He is a God who loves His
people and delivers on every single promise He
has made to His children. Secondly, not only
do we believe God's promises, we affirm God's
promises. Verse 25 and 26, Therefore, Lord God
of Israel, now keep what you've promised to your
servant David, my father, saying, You shall not
fail to have a man set 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. Now while we start
prayer by acknowledging God for who He is, we
then do well to ask Him to do what He has said
in His Word. By affirming the promises He has
made, knowing what we just read, that He is a
promise -keeping God. Solomon's petition is based
on his praise. Now we are tempted at times to
think of prayer as a way of asking God for things,
things we want, things we desire. And certainly
it is appropriate to pray for the things that
we need, but prayer is also a way, we're told
in the scriptures, of asking God to confirm the
promises that He has made, and that is what Solomon
is doing here. When Solomon prayed for the throne
of Israel, he was not pursuing his own ambitions,
but standing on the promises that God had already
made. God vowed that one day one of David's son
would sit on this throne, and Solomon was praying
that God would honor that vow that he had made.
Notice, though. In those verses we read, walking
with God was a particular condition of that...
There are two types of promises and two types
of covenants, conditional and unconditional.
This was conditional on Solomon and his sons.
And Solomon prays that he and his sons would
walk with the Lord as David had done before.
If we had time, we could look at so many things.
We do not. Solomon was a man of wisdom. He was
a man who had a heart for God, but later in his
life, and then certainly his sons, would become
spiritual. failures. They failed to walk with
God in the way that Solomon had in the early
part of his life, in the way that David had in
his life, and their disobedience would ultimately
lead to Israel's downfall. After Solomon, the
kingdom would become divided and eventually would
be carried off into exile. Yet, this is wonderful,
Solomon's request in this prayer would not be
answered by one of his sons, but would be answered
in the person of Jesus Christ. Everything that
Solomon is praying He was not the ultimate fulfillment.
It was a shadow. Jesus Christ was the substance.
Think about this. Jesus prayed in a very similar
way to Solomon here, Luke 23, 46. Jesus prayed
to his father to do what he had promised as he
came to the very end of his earthly life. When
Jesus was on the cross, Luke 23, Jesus cried
out with a loud voice. He said, Father, into
your hands I commit my spirit. And having said
this, he breathed his last. uttered those words,
he was entrusting his life, body, and soul to
the Father's care. And He was asking the Father
to do what He had promised to do, and that is
raise Him from the dead and give Him an eternal
throne. On the third day, God did what He had
said. He affirmed those promises. His word was
confirmed by the bodily resurrection of Jesus
Christ and His ascension to the throne seated
at the right hand of the Father. Likewise, it
is good for us to pray the Word of God. It is
good for us to pray ourselves through the Scriptures.
It is good for us to pray ourselves through the
Epistles, through the Psalms, and ask God that
He would affirm the promises that He has made
to His people. That is a good thing. That is
why when Jesus gave us the Lord's Prayer, He
encouraged us and instructed us to pray, thy
kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it
is in heaven. And we trust, based on the past
deliverances that God has done, that He will
fulfill every promise He has made to His people.
The third thing we see here is the transcendence
of God in verse 27. But will God indeed dwell
on the earth? Solomon praying here still. Behold,
heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain
you, how much less this temple I have built.
Now, in the middle of this prayer of dedication,
Solomon asks a very deep theological question.
And that is, will God indeed dwell on the earth?
And how so? The highest heaven of heavens cannot
contain His glory. We see God is transcendent,
that He is high above the heavens, and Sproul
put it very nicely. R .C. Sproul says, God transcends
space as He transcends time. He does not literally
dwell on a material throne, as Solomon observes
at the consecration of the Jerusalem temple,
but there are certain places in creation where
God has ordained that we will sense His presence
with particular intensity. Places like the burning
bush in Exodus chapter 3, places like the inner
court of the temple and indeed the person of
Jesus Christ, God's temple incarnate. Heaven
is one of those places, a literal dwelling place
of God to which Jesus ascended when His earthly
work was complete. When we think about the transcendence
of God, we would try to not become overwhelmed
because that would be very easy to do, but we
would do well to say that God is immense, that
His invisible being fills the entire universe.
And with that in mind, How could he be held within
four walls of any building? Nevertheless, Solomon
prays for God to be with his people. Last three
verses, 28 through 30. Solomon says, yet, in
spite of that, regard the prayer of your servant
and his supplication, O Lord my God. Very personal.
He says, listen to the cry and the prayer which
your servant is praying before you today. that
your eyes may be opened towards this temple night
and day, toward the place of which you said,
My name shall be there. And you may hear the
prayer which your servant makes toward this place,
and may you hear the supplication of your servant
and your people Israel, when they pray toward
this place, here in heaven your dwelling place,
and when you hear, forgive." Now, we learned
something here that, of course, God cannot be
contained. But the true God, as described in
verse 27, being so transcendent, being high above
the heavens, can be reached through our prayers.
This is wonderful. That through our pleas for
mercy and our pleas for grace to our Lord, through
prayers of triumph, through prayers of tears,
Solomon teaches us a great truth. This transcendence
does not destroy spiritual intimacy. Although
God is transcendent, He is also available. And
Solomon points out that He is available night
and day. Dale Davis in his commentary says, here
is the reason for both trembling and joy. Yahweh's
people can never comprehend Him in all the fullness
of His being. But they can apprehend Him in the
place of prayer. I cannot encompass God and His
grandeur, but I can engage Him in His grace.
His majesty dwarfs our universe, yet His ear
receives our prayers." This is wonderful and
amazing, church. I really want you to get this.
God is accessible and He is available, even though
He spoke the world into existence. Even though,
as He said it, creation happened. Even though
the Lord dwells... in heavens, and that it says
the highest heavens of heavens cannot even contain
Him, and that Genesis would just say that, you
know, He just created the stars also. It's just
some little subtle note there. Even though He
is transcendent, He is accessible to His children.
He is a God not only of grandeur but a God who
sees and hears His children. He has not cast
us off to fend for ourself. We are not distant
from Him. We are not out on our own. He hears
the prayers of His people and not only does He
hear them, He cares! God is intimately involved
in the lives of His children. The Lord has great
care for all those who have called out on the
name of the Lord and are saved. Those who have
been marked out as His and confess His name and
Savior, the Lord cares about us. It'd be one
thing if He just heard our prayers. It's a whole
nother that He has a care for us that we cannot
even fully comprehend. Church, how many of us...
have felt the presence of the Lord and felt Him
drawn near when it felt like the weight of the
world was on our shoulders, when we were just
being crushed by the circumstances of life all
around us and we did not know what to do, when
crisis strikes, when we are completely sideswiped,
we just don't know how we're going to carry on.
But how have we felt the prayers of our brothers
and sisters in Christ? And have we felt the presence
of the Lord just undergird us and almost carry
us through that season where we just felt like
we couldn't even put one foot in front of the
other? In those times, we run to the Lord. And
as we run to Him, we find a place of safety and
refuge as His children. When we pray, we have
the privilege to call Him our God. And we are
a people who desperately need our God. We are
not self -sufficient. We cannot do anything on
our own. The very breath that we have in our
lungs is a gift and a grace from God Almighty.
Every day that we get up, no matter our age,
and put our feet on the floor and stand up is
a gift from God, never to be taken for granted.
And we should pray accordingly, asking God to
listen to our humble pleas and our cries for
mercy. But notice this. Every request Solomon
has prayed to this prayer is not answered in
him. It is ultimately answered in Jesus Christ.
Will God dwell upon the earth, Solomon asks?
Yes. Matthew told us, we're told in Matthew,
Jesus was to be called Emmanuel. God with us.
The temple was never to be a final dwelling place
of the Lord. Christ Himself was to be the true
temple. In Christ, the fullness. of God dwelt
bodily as Christ incarnately came and took on
flesh and God then dwelt among his people. The
temple Solomon dedicated is a shadow. Christ
was the substance. Christ not only coming to
dwell amongst his people, taking on flesh, He
lived amongst a fallen race to die for our sins
and then to rise again so that we could live
with Him. In Christ, God has certainly dwelt
on the earth. But after all this, I want you
to notice God's response to Solomon's prayer,
this heartfelt prayer that he has made in earnest
faith, this prayer of dedication, a prayer that
acknowledged who God was. a prayer that asks
God to confirm His promises and a prayer to dwell
amongst His people, to hear their prayers and
to forgive them. And we would read that in 2
Chronicles 7. We read it in our Order of Service
also. When Solomon had finished praying, fire
came down from heaven. It wasn't just an audible
voice as it was when Jesus was baptized. Fire
came down from heaven and consumed the burnt
offerings and the sacrifices that had been prepared
and laid out there on the altar. And it says,
the glory of the Lord filled the temple. And
the priests could not enter the house of the
Lord. Why couldn't they go do their duties? Why
couldn't they do their services? Because the
glory of the Lord had filled the Lord's house.
And when Israel, who was all gathered there,
when the children of Israel saw how the fire
came down, and the glory of the Lord had entered
the house and was on the temple, it says they
bowed their faces to the ground. They went prostrate
before the Lord on the pavement and they worshiped
Him and they praised God saying, He is good for
his mercy endures forever. We hold 1 Kings and
2 Chronicles together in parallel. Each book
has a slightly different focus. 1 Kings focuses
on why the kingdom eventually split, but 2 Chronicles
focuses on a post -exile people focusing on God's
faithfulness, proper worship, and the importance
of the temple. But because of these purposes,
we have different emphases. But we see here in
2 Chronicles, when Solomon finished praying,
this fire descends and comes upon these sacrifices,
consuming them. And the glory of the Lord, capital
L -O -R -D, there again, Yahweh, fills the temple
visibly for all Israel and Solomon, confirming
that God's acceptance of the worship and the
prayer that was offered according to His covenant.
That the overwhelming manifestation of God's
God's presence in fire and in the temple prevented
the priests from demonstrating His holiness and
His sovereign majesty. And in response, what
do His people do? They're driven to worship.
They fall down. They put their faces before the
Lord reverently, confessing God's goodness and
His steadfast love. And you say, that's great.
That is wonderful. What about us? What about
the saints gathered on Kitts Hill here at Mamrie
Baptist Church this morning? Church, as we have
heard Solomon pray, we must remember we too have
a King who prays for us. Not just on this earth,
Jesus Christ, the greater Solomon, who not only
prayed for us in the garden and prayed for us
on this earth, now makes royal intercession for
us in heaven. In every way that Solomon and his
sons fell short, Christ never did. They were
spiritual failures. They transgressed the law.
They chased after false gods. But in stark contrast,
Jesus Christ kept the law of God faithfully in
every point. Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment
of Solomon's example. In the days of Solomon,
God put his name on the temple. But what about
now? What about us? God now dwells among his
people, the church, by his Holy Spirit. Paul
would write in Ephesians, Now therefore, you
are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow
citizens with the saints and members of the household
of God, having been built on the foundation of
the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ
being the chief cornerstone, and whom the whole
building. Being fitted together grows into a
holy temple in the Lord, here you are, in whom
you also are being built together for a dwelling
place of God in the Spirit. Because God has kept
the promises that He has made to His beloved
Son, Jesus Christ, we have every confidence that
He will keep the promises He has made to us,
His beloved children. Our expectancy every time
we go to prayer is based on the fidelity of God's
promises because He has kept every promise He
has made in Scripture. Because He has kept every
promise He has made to His dear Son, we have
every confidence that He will keep every promise
that He has made to His children, to you and
I. We have every expectancy. And when we go to
prayer, we stand on those promises and we trust
in them every time we pray. God has promised
that His church would persevere to the very end,
that the gates of hell would not prevail against
it. So church, we pray for the perseverance of
Christ Church, especially in places that it is
under severe persecution in countries all over
the world where our dear brothers in Christ are
at great risk every time they go to worship.
God has promised that his kingdom will grow until
every tribe and nation gives honor and glory
to him. So we pray that God expand his wide dominion
by planting new churches and sending gospel workers
to the ends of the earth. Church, not only does
God hear us when we pray, we have been granted
great access to Him. We do not have to go to
a particular temple and have someone intercede
for us. We do not have to come and offer physical
sacrifices to have our sins covered anymore.
They were atoned by Jesus Christ the righteous.
No matter the time, Solomon said, day or night.
Hear the prayers of your people. Forgive them.
God hears the prayers of His covenant people
and the assurity of His word. He hears the petitions
made from our beds during long sleepless nights
where sleep is gone from us, where the cares
of the world have overtaken us, where we have
so much going on and we just don't know what
to do. He hears us from there. He hears us on
our best days as we pray throughout our days.
God hears us in all places at all times. We have
access to Him. that they did not have at the
time of this dedication. It was unfathomable
to God's people. The Lord hears us when we pray,
and as He hears us, He answers us according to
His will for the divine purposes of His glory.
And we rest in that. We take our prayers to the
Lord, and we rest that His will be done in accordance
with His glory. You say, okay, in light of this
text, how now must I live? Church? We must live
by the truths that we pray. Our prayers must
be deep. They can't be surface level, superficial,
robotic. Since God is a faithful God, we trust
Him to provide for our needs even when we're
not sure how it's going to be accomplished. Since
He's a loving God, we believe that He cares for
us even when we feel forsaken by those around
us. resting in the fact that He calls us His
own. Since He is a promise -keeping God, we are
convinced that He will save us to the very end,
even when life is hard and we're not sure how
we can go on from day to day. We rest in the
truth that God has began a good work in us and
He will bring it to completion. We have the privilege
of praying to an all -wise, merciful, gracious
promise. keeping God. May the Lord help us to
do so, to pray in this way, seeking his face
in prayer regularly and consistently for his
ultimate glory. Church, this is the word of the
Lord. Amen. We don't get to the Old Testament
that often. We do on Sunday nights quite a bit,
but on Sunday mornings we're in the study of
Matthew, Pastor Ryan, and I enjoy going back
in the Old Testament and seeing the prophets
and the saints and the shadows that we see and
ultimately the fulfillment in Christ. We have
to find that every single time. We've reached
a point in our service that we have sang, we
have praised, we have had public prayer. We've
opened God's word, and now we come to the point
of service that we set aside every week to come
to the table of the Lord and take communion with
one another. And as we look to these sacraments,
the bread and the cup, we do invite you to the
table this morning. It's the Lord's table. But
by coming to the table, we are not only engaging
in a common means of