2018 Weekly Devotional - Week 28

Week 28

I Kings 8:22-30 & 9:1-10

“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, 23 and said, “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their heart; 24 you have kept with your servant David my father what you declared to him. You spoke with your mouth, and with your hand have fulfilled it this day. 25 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 before me as you have walked before me.’ 26 Now therefore, O God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, which you have spoken to your servant David my father. 27 “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built! 28 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 this day, 29 that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which you have said, ‘My name shall be there,’ that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place. 30 And listen to the plea of your servant and of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. And listen in heaven your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive. As soon as Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king's house and all that Solomon desired to build, 2 the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3 And the Lord said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house that you have built, by putting my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. 4 And as for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my rules, 5 then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’ 6 But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, 7 then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. 8 And this house will become a heap of ruins.[a] Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ 9 Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore the Lord has brought all this disaster on them.’” 10 At the end of twenty years, in which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king's house, “

Neville Chamberlain was Prime Minister in England between 1937-1940, the years leading up to WWII. Like many who had lived through the horrors of WWI, Chamberlain wanted to avoid war at all costs. Britain and France came together and drafted the Munich Agreement in which they ceded to Germany the Czech region of the Sudentenland in an effort to appease Hitler and avoid large-scale conflict. Chamberlain’s famous statement that he had secured “peace for our time” has become one of the most ridiculed statements in history. The reason for this ridicule was that, in March of 1939, Hitler broke his word and invaded Czechoslovakia. All of Europe quickly became aware of Germany’s intentions, despite Germany’s rhetoric to the contrary. How could Chamberlain have been so misguided? It is not as if he had not been warned either. Churchill requested a session of parliament to discuss the growing threat of invasion, to which Chamberlain responded, “I suppose he has prepared a terrific oration which he wants to let off.” Chamberlain heard, but did not listen. He had experienced German aggression before but was unwilling to believe it could happen again.

God had made promises to David that the Lord had been faithful to fulfill in David’s life. Solomon asks the Lord to continue to be faithful to those promises and to hear the prayers of Israel. In chapter nine, God answers Solomon by saying that as long as Solomon and his descendants remain faithful to the Lord, he would remain faithful to his promises. How wonderful to know that our God hears our prayers and responds! If you know the rest of the Bible story, you know that it was not long at all before David’s descendants proved themselves to be unfaithful. As promised, God withdrew his hand and Israel started a long and tortuous process of decline and eventually deportation and exile.

Paul wrote in I Corinthians 10:11 that the Old Testament is a pattern for us. We are therefore to learn from this passage as well as other examples. Are we listening or merely hearing what scripture is saying? Sometimes we do not listen because we do not like what we hear. In our day of constantly hearing that God’s only desire in this age of grace is to bless, irrespective of our response or lack thereof, we need to listen to what God is truly saying as we strive to remain faithful. Churchill rightly admonished Chamberlain when he said, “There is a great danger in refusing to believe things you do not like.” This proved disastrous for England and will be so for us if we do not learn from God’s word.

In Christ,

John