Bible Study - 2 Chronicles 6:18-21

Dear Holy Father, please bless our time today in your word and in prayer, in Jesus' name,.

Amen.

Solomon’s Prayer and God’s Dwelling With His People

All right, let's go ahead and look at 2 Chronicles chapter 6. 2 Chronicles 6, I'm going to go ahead and read verses 12 through 21 to get us started. Give you a second to turn there,. 2 Chronicles 6. Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands.

Solomon had made a bronze platform, five cubits long, five cubits wide, and three cubits high, and set it in the court and he stood on it. Then he knelt on his knees in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven and said, O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven or on earth, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their heart, who have kept with your servant David, my father, what you declared to him.

You spoke with your mouth and with your hand and have fulfilled it this day. Now therefore, O Lord, God of Israel, keep for your servant David, my father, what you have promised him, saying, you shall not lack a man to sit before me on the throne of Israel.

If only your sons pay close attention to their way, to walk in my law as you have walked before me. Now therefore, O Lord, God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, what you have spoken to your servant David.

But will God indeed dwell with man on earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house that I have built. Yet have regard to the prayer of your servant and to his plea, O Lord, my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that your servant prays before you, that your eyes may be open day and night toward this house, the place where you have promised to set your name, that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place.

And listen to the pleas of your servant and of your people, Israel, when they pray toward this place. And listen from heaven, your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive.".

Amen.

All right, so in this passage, Solomon continues to make his prayer and he praises God for having condescended to dwell with the people and to listen to them. All right, so in this first verse, but will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth?

So to dwell with man is for his presence to be with men. He has asked this question before to Hiram, if you remember that. He asked Hiram, will God indeed dwell with man? The idea being that even as they begin the project, it was not clear.

Well, maybe it was clear, but it was not...it was a very large task and one where success seemed like a very huge gift that would be given. Would God indeed do this? And now He has. Now He's come down in the cloud, He's appeared, and He asked this question again, just showing how wonderful it is the idea that God would dwell with man, given that He's such a high God and His creatures are so lowly.

One interesting thing about this passage here is compared to the text in 1 Kings 8, 27, with men is added. So in 1 Kings it just says, but will God in very deed dwell on the earth? But the Chronicler includes Solomon's words, with men, to emphasize that God dwelling with man being a great gift.

Is that a question?

No?

Okay. Then it continues on. Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you. How much less this house which I have built. Who knows what the heaven of heaven is? It's the heaven of heavens.

Yeah.

The third heaven.

Which is?

The dwelling place of God.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

The dwelling place of God. So you've got the sky. That's like the first heaven. You've got outer space. That's the second heaven. And the third heaven is God's dwelling place. Notion of third heaven comes from 2 Corinthians 12, where Paul speaks of being taken up to the third heaven.

All right.

So yeah, he continues speaking here, pointing out that none of these things could contain the Lord. And so it is a, once again, it's a gracious thing that God would dwell with man. Verse 19. Yet regard the prayer of your servant into his supplication, O Jehovah my God, and listen to the cry and to the prayer which your servant prays before you.

Notice that he's repeating synonyms for prayer here to emphasize his plea, saying, listen to the cry and to the prayer which your servant prays before you. And at the beginning, yet regard the prayer of your servant into his supplication, supplication and prayer, pretty much the same word, cry and prayer, your servant prays, right?

These are all synonyms. And he's repeating these things to emphasize this. Now, did anybody notice a difference in this verse compared to 1 Kings? Verse 19. So in 1 Kings, it talks about this day, listen to my prayer this day.

The Chronicler often abbreviates things, maybe that's the point, or maybe the point is just to make this more timeless so it's not just about that day, but even now with the rebuilding of the temple. Okay, so he keeps going and he says, that your eyes may be open toward this house day and night, even toward the place of which you have said that you would put your name there to listen to the prayer which your servant will pray toward this place.

All right, for his eyes to be open toward the house of God, and it's basically for him to be attentive toward those who would come near. Now, it's interesting because while God is dwelling in the house, he's still acknowledging that God transcends the house, right?

How would his eyes be on the house unless he were outside the house in the heavens? And so he's acknowledging that God is not to be thought of as contained in the house. I mean, he's already said that directly, that the house can't contain him.

But even in speaking, may your eyes be open toward the house, suggesting that God is outside the house. And so this is supposed to happen day and night, you know, continually, God is watching over them.

Can anybody think of times in Scripture when looking toward the temple is important for.

Prayer?

Josh, do you have one? Right, Jonah prays toward the temple. Anybody else? Daniel? Yeah, Daniel. What's interesting there is that there's no real temple at that point either, but he's still honoring the temple, right?

Like Nebuchadnezzar has already, you know, come by the temple, and so he's, part of his prayer is that God would restore the temple, but he's pointed towards it. I have one more written down that I wanted to look up.

Yeah, Psalm 5, 7. But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house. I will bow down toward your holy temple in the fear of you. That's interesting also because that one's coming from David.

This is before the temple. So we have before the temple, we have after the temple, we have during the temple. We have examples of people pointing to the temple even when there isn't, even when there isn't a temple.

Where was that one?

That was Psalm 5, 7.

Psalm 5, 7.

Yes, Psalm 5, 7. He talks about a name, God's name being put on the house. I think we've talked about this before, but Deuteronomy is replete with this idea that once they settle in the land, God's going to pick a place to put his name.

They don't know where it's going to be, but that's going to happen. And so finally they have this capital city, Jerusalem, and finally the temple's being built and God has fulfilled this promise that's been given to them since Deuteronomy, that he would put his name on some particular place within the promised land.

So to put his name on it basically is to stake his reputation on the temple. If this is the place where prayers are answered, if prayers aren't answered there, that will reflect poorly on him. If prayers are answered there, it will reflect well on him.

And yeah, Solomon doing this is essentially appealing to the promises of God. That's why you would recount history like this, not just because you're loquacious and like to hear yourself talk, but because recounting that history is appealing to the promises of God.

Do your eyes may be open toward this house day and night, even toward the place of which you have said that you would put your name there. You have said this, God, now do it. It's good for us to appeal to the promises of God and to, yeah, not as though we can force God to do anything, but this is the only means we have of appealing to him is based on his own word.

Did anybody notice a, yes, go ahead, Josh. I think I'm going to bring up a new thought, so if you have something to say, go for it. Oh, Deuteronomy. I have a lot of verses in Deuteronomy written down.

Oh, I have, I have one, I have three verses in chapter 12. I have two verses in chapter 14 and three verses in 16 and then one verse in 26. So I'm not looking at a particular verse in Deuteronomy. So you're saying there's one verse in the first one in Deuteronomy or something?

Oh, the 12, right.

Got it.

Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, definitely you got to clean out the house before you. Can I have something present there?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn down the ashram with fire, et cetera, et cetera.

Right. Yeah.

There's a lot there.

Yeah.

And then the Lord will put his name on his house. And there you shall eat before the Lord your God and shall rejoice.

Yeah.

Okay.

Did anybody notice a difference between this verse and the parallel one in 1 Kings?

Anybody?

Okay.

There is one when it says that your eyes may be open toward this house day and night. It said night and day in 1 Kings as opposed to day and night. Now that might not seem very significant, but consider, it might not seem intentional, but consider this in, let's see, Nehemiah 1 .6.

I've pointed out before a lot of times the order of words where things will be adjusted slightly to make allusions to David or to make allusions to Ezra. I'm not on it. I'm just looking at verse 20. I'm not on a question.

Answer the question.

Oh, really? The day and night verse is in question four, isn't it?

Oh, right. Right.

Yeah.

This day.

Yeah. Okay.

So Nehemiah 1 .6. Let me pull that up here. Nehemiah 1 .6. This is Nehemiah praying. It says, let your ear be attentive and your eyes be open to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel, your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel.

Right.

So, yeah, a lot of times the Chronicler will be showing the similarities between Solomon and then David or sometimes the similarities between Solomon and Nehemiah and Ezra.

Right.

And these are, this is one of those occasions where, where he seems to be doing that. That phrase, you know, now hear my prayer that I pray day and night before you, et cetera,.

Et cetera.

Right.

This sounds very much like what Solomon is praying here.

All right.

And then verse 21, and listen to the supplications of your servant and of your people, Israel, when they will pray toward this place, yes, hear from your dwelling place, even from heaven, and when you hear, forgive.

So yeah, when you hear forgive, those two are mutually contingent. You know, if the Lord doesn't hear, he's not going to forgive. If he hasn't forgiven, it means he hasn't heard.

All right.

And then there was a John four passage, which hopefully you had a chance to read. And that shows Jesus saying that there's coming a time where it's the inward orientation of the heart that will be counted alone and not the outward orientation.

That's why we don't pray in a particular direction as Muslims or others do, or ancient Jews, because yeah, Christ dwells within us as opposed to, yeah, as opposed to him having put his name on a particular place in geography.

Yes.

Because in Genesis one, evening and morning, that was the first day, et cetera. Yeah, that's probably the reason it was originally written in first Kings that way, but where he says night and day. But given that Nehemiah has said day and night, I do this, makes sense that Chronicler in encouraging the people highlights the similarity between Solomon and Nehemiah.

You know, this King that you had back then when everything was perfect, you know, we, you know, we are following in that pattern and, you know, we need to recapture that Davidic kingship. We need to, you know, wait for the Messiah, et cetera, right?

All that's kind of being implied by these ways that he shapes the text slightly. And it's interesting too, because this is like the, this is kind of the value of Chronicles in a lot of ways is to notice these things, to notice what he's doing and what he's signaling to the people.

Otherwise these are just repeat verses from first Kings and why didn't we just read first Kings instead? So yeah, it is, it is interesting to see how God is communicating encouragement to his people through the way the Chronicler is presenting the information.

Worshiping the True God and the Meaning of “Theology Proper”

Yes.

Some of the Jews certainly were.

Yeah.

I mean, there's even some Gentiles who are called worshipers of God, like Cornelius, I guess.

Yeah.

Well, the Samaritans, no, they were worshiping the wrong God, right? They were not.

Yeah.

That's my understanding.

Yes. Yeah.

I don't make a hard distinction between those things, right?

Yeah.

I don't make a, I don't, because Jesus himself said that you do not know the Father, et cetera, right to the Jews who are worshiping the true God wrongly. But he goes ahead and says that they don't know him at all, right?

So I, you know, like people will ask, one big question is does, do Muslims worship the same God that we do wrongly or do they worship an entirely different God? I'm fine with saying an entirely different God given, but, but see, you're making it about the degrees of differences.

I'm making it about something more fundamental, right? Like has their heart been regenerate to worship the true God or is their heart oriented somewhere entirely different, right? And I think that that's the way Jesus speaks when he rebukes the, when he rebukes the Jews.

That may have been the case.

Yeah.

I know that Samaritans had their own, their own version of the Pentateuch, but I don't, I don't recall that being one of the differences. I know that they switched the two mountains, the mountains on which the blessings were pronounced in Deuteronomy, the mountains where the curses were pronounced.

And then their, if I remember correctly, their place of worship is the one where the places, where the, where the curses were pronounced.

Yeah.

Originally.

Yeah.

Any other questions about this?

Comments?

Yes.

For number six, that is, let's see, passage speaks of supplications plurally and emphasizes God's residence in heaven. I forget what, how he, I think the phrase even from heaven, I think that may be added.

And then, yeah, and then it says supplications instead of supplication. So a little bit of emphasis. I don't think there's necessarily significant, too much significance with that one. I'm not suggesting every single one of these differences has a lot of significance in it, but I do think that a number of them do far more than usually get pointed out.

Like the, like the day and night one. I think that one seems pretty clear that he's making a parallel to Nehemiah.

Questions?

Yes.

So people differ on this. I'm suggesting my, when I explain the timeline, I believe second Chronicles is written, I would guess, I would guess at least 20 or 50 years later, if not further.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Those are kind of arbitrary, like 20 or 50, I'm just kind of making that up. But what I'm basing that off of is the fact that there are, there are numbers of quantities of people given in Nehemiah that are also given in second Chronicles, where the number in second Chronicles is slightly larger.

The suggestion being that there are more people of those particular tribes, et cetera, at that point in time. And yeah, some people say that, a lot of people say second Chronicles is written first, before Nehemiah, but I don't, I don't think that's the case, I think it's written after.

Given especially those numbers.

Yes.

Right.

Yeah, they're not just families, it's like numbers of priests and things like that, but.

Yeah.

Any other questions?

All right.

The Being of God, Divine Immutability, and How to Pray

Is it important to understand the being of God? Let's start off with that one. Like what is Solomon, I mean, he starts off with theology proper here, right? Will God dwell with men on earth? You know, if you, if you're inclined not to understand the being of God and to say that, oh, those high philosophical thoughts about him are, that's very impractical stuff.

Basically you tend towards what the pagans believe, that their God actually does live in the little house, you know? And you don't respect God as you want. Theology is, theology is important. Anybody have any thoughts on that?

Yeah, go ahead.

So it's getting to like an ontological issue where nothing in creation continues greater.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah, God is greater than all things. Yeah, the problem is other people's gods are not creators, right? Only our God is the creator. And yeah, it's interesting because, I mean, even now you can think about errors that people make with who God is or what God is that affects how they think about things.

Can anybody think of any errors that people make about who God is that would affect their, their beliefs or their practice even?

Yeah.

That's a really common one. And what's the practical effect for people's lives?

Sure. Right.

Yeah.

And then when they have, when they end up not having control over a situation, so repeating back to the recording since it can't necessarily hear. Yeah, it might lead people to think they have more control, but then when they find out they have less control because they don't have control, then they'll be very upset because, well, if God's not in control, no one's in control.

And there's just a lot of anxiety to be had in situations like that. There's a common belief too that God changes himself, right? And you have a lot of texts that if read naively would suggest that just like if you read this temple naively, you would think, oh, God actually is, can fit inside the house, right?

If you see these verses that say God got angry, you know, and then he became, you know, upset or he became glad, et cetera. And then you think, oh, okay, God's in time changing and so he's a changing God.

No, he's the same yesterday and today and forever. And there's a lot of, and it is because of that, the Old Testament says that we are not consumed. If he were to change, we would be consumed. But he does not change, yes.

Right?

So the word emotion has the word motion in it, right? Motion means like moving. Okay, God is not, God is not changing, he's not moving. He doesn't have passions. Passions means being passively operated on, right?

He's not, he's not operated on and changed. So you could call him zealous, you know, you can call him living. These are words that don't suggest change.

Zealous.

Yeah, just because that's what a lot of people mean when they say he has passions. They just mean he's like, like when we think of passionate, we think of zeal or something like that. Zeal is a good word to describe God.

Passions aren't because they, they suppose like a change, you know, an emotional difference. So yeah, that is something to take into account. Solomon starts us off with understanding who God is in order to approach him rightly.

What assurance do you have that the Lord receives your prayers? Yeah, what features of Solomon's prayers should be incorporated into your own prayers? Things to consider tonight as we're praying. Any thoughts on those questions?

Yes.

He asked for forgiveness, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, he asked that God would forgive the people when they pray towards him. As Nehemiah was also praying. And then on top of that, we also see him appeal to God's promises that he would place his name somewhere.

So those are reasons too for God to answer, you know, it's good to pepper your prayers with stuff like that. You know, you have, you have given us a great commission. You've told us that the gospel is supposed to go from Jerusalem to Judea and to the other parts of the earth, et cetera.

You know, just recounting the history of what God has done and appealing to those promises is a good thing to do. You can't manipulate God, but God is going to answer prayers that glorify him. And the prayers that are going to glorify him are the ones that acknowledge what he has promised.

Any other observations about how you pray? Yes, Vinay.

Yes. Yeah.

Right.

Like this is, this is how you've demonstrated yourself to be faithful. The underlying implication being not that, I mean, he has the freedom to answer however he wants, but that he should remain true to the character that he has already demonstrated.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is what it, what it looks like to wrestle with God. He also mentions crying. If you want to cry, go ahead. No, but seriously, you know, zealous, zealous, heartfelt prayers are good. Once again, you're not going to manipulate God with your tears like a, like a daughter who's got her father wrapped around his finger or her finger, you know, but yeah, he heard the people of Israel cry out to him while they were in Egypt and, you know, he had compassion.

On them.

So it's good not to, like, certainly we're not supposed to be anxious, but if we are, if we don't acknowledge the realities of spiritual difficulty, et cetera, once again, God wouldn't be as glorified, right?

If you do not feel the need for the answer to prayer, you will not give as much thanks when the prayer is answered. So that's why, that's why the word cry is an appropriate word, right? It's good to really cry out to God to want the thing that you are praying for.

If you're, if you're going through your prayer and you feel pretty uninvested, you know, pretty blasé about the whole thing, how are you going to feel after he answers? You're going to be like, oh, well, that was nice, thanks God, right?

That's not going to give God a lot of glory. God's going to answer the prayers that most glorify him. You should, either you shouldn't be praying for that thing, or you need to work on your heart so that you do care about this thing, as if you want God to care about it, you know.

If God, if this is according to God's will, then God does care about it and you should.

Too.

That's one way of saying it. Any other questions?

All right.

Well, let's go ahead and close here. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you again for your word. I pray that we would be able to incorporate some of these things that we have seen in Solomon's prayer into our own this evening.

I pray especially that you would give us heartfelt prayer so we would not go through the motions, but that we would earnestly desire your blessings on our assembly. In Jesus' name, amen.