All right, good to see you all out again. I understand Sunday we had a little trouble with the live stream, so I'm hoping it's working okay tonight. But that's all right, that's good. Those of you who are watching by live stream, I hope that you'll get along and grab your prayer bulletin. In a little bit, we're gonna go through some time of prayer. And those of you who are online, you've got your church bulletin plus the mail, the information that I sent out earlier. I want to read, our missionary of the week this week is the Kongs in Hong Kong. But I think because of the political situation over there, they can't really send out many newsletters, so we don't hear too much from them. But we do want to remember to pray for them. They're serving over there in Hong Kong, and the Chinese are kind of taking over, and it's getting very difficult for them, I think, in some of their service over there. Years ago, my wife and I went to Hong Kong right before the switchover from British rule to the Chinese rule. And I remember the T-shirts that had the British flag on one side of it And then it was like they were, they had, it was like two cartoon guys painting over the British flag and putting a Chinese flag on top of it. So, so there's been some changes since I was there, been a long time. But I understand that it's hard for them. And then with COVID, they're having more COVID lockdowns and things like that. So let's remember the Kongs. But I did want to read a missionary letter. I found one from the Wrights, Jim and Myra Wright. They were with us a couple years ago for our missions conference. And their ministry is to go into foreign countries and sometimes here in the United States and to fill pulpits. And they go to foreign countries and they either speak through an interrupter, an interpreter, or they learn the language and they preach and work with the people there in those languages. And they're all over the place. But let me just read this letter. They're in their 60s, and they've just ministered all over the place. Dear praying friends, 2022 is in the books, and 2023 is bright with God's promise. Last time we wrote, we were in Edinburgh. That's Scotland. After a cheerful goodbye to the sweet people in the Almond Valley Baptist Church, we began our trip home. The weather intervened and we missed our connection in London, and after a 24-hour layover, we finally arrived back in Loves Park, Illinois. A month-long sickness fell upon us that was not COVID, but it was very hard on Myra. The three doctors we consulted believed it was a residual from environmental issues in Scotland. God bless, and after many treatments we both received, it has cleared up. In mid-January, we began a trip south. We were able to report to four churches, spend time with dear friends, and take a vacation with our two sons and their families. Having the 12 of us on a cruise was an experience we will treasure forever. Pray for our young mother that we met in Honduras. When she discovered that Myra was a missionary, Vanessa initiated a lengthy discussion with many spiritual questions. We're currently driving through Texas on our way out to Cedro Woolley, Washington. So they're north of us now. And we're scheduled to do pulpit supply in February and March. And then we're hoping to report to our churches in the Midwest before our June departure for Wales. These folks are all over the place. What a joy it will be to return to, and I cannot pronounce that name, Ross, something, Gog, Wales. Josh and Rachel Roberts are ministering there and this will be our second fill-in for them. We're in the process of gathering our extreme cold weather gear for our September-December in Ronkin Inlet up near the Arctic Circle. Filling in for Nathan Jones with the Inuit people, the Eskimo, will be a very different experience for us. Thanks again for keeping us before the throne. Praises for safety and travel, praises for recovery from Respiratory problems and a wonderful vacation with family. Prayer request for Vanessa in Honduras. Safety as they drive to Washington State. They might be doing that right now. And a blessed pulpit supply and fill-ins. And I also got a message from Mike Privet right this afternoon, too. And he is coming back from India. And he thanked us for the Christmas offering that we sent. And let's see if I can find his message here really quick. He thanked us for the Christmas offering, and I can't find his other message. But he is, I think, right now traveling back from India. And so he's got a long, long, long, long flight hoping to be back so he can preach on Sunday. And just pray that he gets there safely. He preached, he worked with a bunch of pastors over there in India, and I think up near near Myanmar, up in those areas, up towards the Himalayas is where he said he was. And so he had some little dangerous areas where he was, and the Lord protected him, and he's very grateful for that. And he plans to use the Christmas offering that we gave him to help his wife travel with him on his next trip. So the Lord's blessing, and he's grateful for your generosity there. Some other special requests we've got to remember. Remember Pastor Ennis, as I said before the service, he called me a little bit ago and he's feeling kind of spry. And I don't know whether that's him or whether that's the medicine, but let's pray for him that he'll be able to get to go home. He was hoping to go home today, but there was some technicalities between the departments at the hospital and stuff that kept him there. And so he said he was feeling well, but I think he'll be home tomorrow. And then he'll be home for a few days before he can get back to church. He's got to get back in a swing of things. And so pray for him. And David's there, ready to take care of him, too, when he's there. So continue to pray for David, too, as he's recovering from his from his leukemia treatments and stuff. So there's a lot going on over there. Pray for the annual meeting this week. This is coming up this Sunday. It's a time of celebration of what God's done in 2022, and a lot of ministry reports. I saw that there were like 30 ministry reports, and then there's some financial reports. We're just gonna celebrate what God's did in 2022. It was miraculous what God did. And we're thankful for all the ministry opportunities we had there. I pray for Sean Vassa. He's not on your list. You might want to write that down. Sean Vassa. Shane Vassa. Shane Vassa. He's going in on Friday morning for some surgery on his feet. And he's a little nervous about it, as any boy would be. But pray for him. And then pray for the vases in general. They've had a lot going on. They had problems with their plumbing in the house. They've had repairs done on their house. It took them longer than they anticipated. Water got up into their walls. They had to tear their backyard up. It had been a total mess. And then he called me today and said somebody stole the catalytic converter off his car. So they just have had just one thing after the other. So just pray for the vases. They've got a lot going on. And then Restituta Velasco is in the hospital. She had a major surgery just across the street here the other day, and she's in ICU recovering. So remember her. That's Vi's mom. And then next week, you get a special treat. Pray for me, I'll be going to an FBF meeting next week in Indianapolis. I snuck an extra day on there, hope you don't mind. I'm gonna go see my 84-year-old mother and my nephew who's been suffering from the leukemia treatments over there. So I'm gonna go see him. And then I'll be back next Thursday. But Bobby Elip is gonna speak next week. And he always does a good job, I know you'll be blessed by him. And then the following week, I won't be here on Wednesday night either, because Chris and I are heading to Saskatchewan, Canada in February, if you can believe that. to do a couple's retreat or a family retreat for an old, well he's not as young now as he was. He was a teenager when I was at Guam and now he's working with a church up in, the church is Moose Jaw Baptist Church. So you get an idea, it's out in the country up there in Canada. And we're going to be ministering to their families up there for a few days and then we'll be back. Whenever, you'll find out, you'll be back. But Pastor Kelly and Bobby and Pastor Ennis will cover things and things will go just fine while I'm away. And I know they'll do a great job. And you'll probably be thankful that they're doing it and not me. So anyway, turn in your Bibles tonight to the book of 1 Kings. 1 Kings. 1 Kings chapter eight. We're continuing our study in prayer. And we're talking about different ways to pray. And I know one of the questions that people always have, especially new believers, it's like, How do you pray? What do you do when you pray? What are you supposed to say? And what I've been trying to do is give you motivations for praying, but also kind of give you some models in the scripture of how different people prayed and what they prayed for, so you can get some ideas on the things that should come up in your prayers. Here in 1 Kings, you can look at 1 Kings chapter 6 if you like at the beginning here, In this area, at this time in the history of Israel, Solomon has now risen to the throne, and he's the wisest man who ever lived. You remember he started off as a young man, scared to death, and the first thing he did was he got down on his knees and said, Lord, help me, I'm young. I'm being a king, I wanna do this right, help me to do this well. And God promised him that he would give him wisdom, and then God promised him long life, God promised him that he would have wealth, and Solomon was really kind of the pinnacle of Israel's kingdom before he fell into sin with his wives, when he took on so many wives and so much trouble that he got as a result of that. But at the beginning here, in 1 Kings chapter six, His father, David, the great warrior, had a desire to build a temple for the Lord. Israel, since the times of Moses, had been worshiping at the tabernacle, which is kind of a tent that they would set up in the wilderness. It had planks and wood boards and it had all the temple furnishings that God gave the instructions for and the dimensions for and all of that while Moses was meeting with God on the top of the mountain at Mount Sinai. And then they came together and got some skilled workers and put together this beautiful tent But now it's probably four or five hundred years old. I don't know exactly how old it is, but you can imagine anything that's that old after a while starts to get a little battered and worn. And no matter how good you try to take care of it, they all tend to get worn. And so David gets an idea that he wants to build a solid temple after now they've taken over Jerusalem, they've conquered Jerusalem, they have a capital city now, and he wants to build a temple up on the top of the mountain, Mount Moriah up there. And so he wants to do this and God says, I didn't ask you to do that, but I will let you do this for me. You see, when we do worship, it's not for us, it's for him, right? Some people want to build a big church, a big fancy building for the glory of the person who's in charge. It's a monument to them. I remember going to Quebec, Canada, and we went to this big oratorio of Saint Joseph in Canada. It's the second largest, second tallest building in all of Roman Catholicism, next to the Vatican. Great big church. And they had started off with a little church, a little wooden church, and a fellow named Father Andre started that church. And then he raised enough money to build this multi-million dollar edifice. It had brass escalators going up and down inside of it. I wish we had some of those here. But anyway, just a beautiful place, but They took the heart, when he died, they took the heart of Father Andre and they stuck it in a little glass thing that looked kind of like a lantern. And they pickled his heart somehow and stuck it behind glass. And now people go into that church in Quebec, Canada, up on Montréal, Montreal. And they go up there and they bow and they stick money through the wall in worship of Father Andre's heart. The church is a monument to the priest, rather than a house of worship to God. And it's a sad thing to see to me. Well, this is what Solomon was getting ready to build, and he wanted to make it not a monument to Solomon, but he wanted it to be something that was glorious to God, that caused people to worship God. 1 Kings chapter 6, I'm on page 4 here. Now, it came about in the 480th year after the sons of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month in the Jewish calendar, that he began to build the house of the Lord. As for the house which King Solomon built for the Lord, It's length was 60 cubits, that's 90 feet, and it's width 20 cubits, that's 60 feet wide. Well, maybe not 60, maybe about 50 feet wide, and it's height 30 cubits. Anyway, the whole thing was a massive building. If you read the instructions on how it was done, it was gold-plated inside and outside, cedar wood, beautiful, absolutely gorgeous. And while they were building it, it was set up as a house of worship all along. So even as they were building it, it was being done very quietly and very reverently. All of the stones were being cut in another place and then being dragged and put in place. there at the temple. First Kings, chapter 6, verse 7, the house, while it was being built, was built of stone prepared at the quarry. And there was neither hammer nor ax nor any iron tool heard in the house while it was being built. We built a church auditorium in Guam when we were there. It was a 600-seat auditorium with stained glass windows and all that. And we had workers that would work. There were Koreans and Filipinos and other people that worked on this building. And we had a rule on the property. These people were not Christians, they were not believers. Some of them might have been, but we didn't know. They actually spoke different languages. The leader of the building was a man named Mr. Bang, a Korean guy. Man, he run a tight ship. And Mr. Bang, we gave Mr. Bang the rules that when you're building this, this is a house of God. This is a church. We don't want anyone smoking. We don't want anyone cursing. This is a house of God. And even while it's being built, we want it to be done reverently, and we want it done properly. Okay? So this is the attitude that Solomon had. This temple was being built for the glory of God, and they wanted it to be a holy place under the Lord. 1 Kings chapter 6 and verse 38 says, He was seven years in the building of it and you can read about it all through first Kings chapter 6 So Solomon gets done with this beautiful building and it's all set up But it still wasn't a house of worship I told you before, I live here in the church, you know that. And I come downstairs and I walk into the auditorium, and in the dark sometimes, and every once in a while my wife will jump out and it scares me. But we have this big building here, but I can tell you all week long, it's just a big building, that's all it is. That's what the temple was until God moved in. When you, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit, when you show up at church, I'm telling you, the auditorium, the whole building takes on a whole different aura about it. It's not just a big building. It's a place of worship. And so I'm so thankful that it's nice to have people here for church. I'm glad that you're here. All right, so let's go to the next page. When the structure of the temple was completed, all of the furnishings were taken out of the tabernacle, and that didn't make it a house of worship. They brought in all of it, the table of showbread, they brought in the brazen altar. They brought in the Ark of the Covenant. And when they brought the Ark of the Covenant in, then something special happened. A large group of people had assembled for the dedication of the temple. A large group, a lot of the leaders of the tribes of Israel, a lot of the spiritual leaders, they all gathered together. There must have been hundreds, maybe thousands of people there on the Temple Mount as that temple was getting ready to be dedicated. And Solomon steps out in front of everybody, the king, the spiritual leader, not just the political leader. He was the spiritual leader at that time of Israel, along with the priest. He had a role. And he walks in to dedicate this special building that he had made, had put together for the Lord. Look at 1 Kings chapter 8, and I'm looking at the first verse here on page number 5. It's in your notes there. Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the fathers' households of the sons of Israel to King Solomon in Jerusalem to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from the city of David, which is in Zion. all the men of Israel assembled themselves to King Solomon at the feast in the month Ethanam, which is the seventh month in the Jewish calendar. Then all the elders of Israel came, and the priests took up the ark, and they brought up the ark of the Lord in the tent of meeting with, and all the holy utensils which were in the tent, and the priests and the Levites brought them up. And King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel who were assembled to him were with him before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and oxen they could not be counted or numbered. Then the priest brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place, into the inner sanctuary of the house, to the most holy place, under the wings of the cherubim. For the cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubim made a covering over the ark and its poles from above. But the poles were so long that the ends of the poles could be seen from the holy place before the inner sanctuary, but they could not be seen outside. They are there to this day, at the time of the recording of this historical event. Verse 9, there was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone which Moses put there at Horeb. Those were the Ten Commandments, where the Lord made a covenant with the sons of Israel when they came out of the land of Egypt. It happened that when the priests came from the Holy Place, the Ark of the Covenant was put in place in the Holy Place, and then the cloud filled the house of the Lord. You remember, as they were traveling through the wilderness during the day, there was a cloud that went over the top of the tabernacle and said, this is where the children of Israel were to reside. At night, it turned into a pillar of fire to represent the presence of the Lord. And then when the cloud would go up, they would follow it and go to different places. So this is what we call the Shekinah glory of God. And it enters the temple so that we know now that God is pleased with the building. God is pleased with Solomon's attitude. God's pleased with Solomon's heart. God's pleased with all the preparation that's gone into this. And now he's putting his blessing upon it. It happened, verse 10, when the priest came from the holy place, the cloud filled the house of the Lord so that the priest could not stand to minister because of the cloud. For the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. Now that's just a drawing there. I'm sure that's not exactly what the temple looked like. But you get the idea there of this huge presence of God. coming down in the temple. Verse 12, underneath the picture there, then Solomon said, I like that little quote I got out of one of my books, on stately structures unless God has been in the work. And if he fails to manifest his glory in them, they are after all but a ruinous heap. A temple without the ark and the glory are like a candlestick without a candle." Now, I travel through this city, I see other places, and I see church buildings, and they're buildings. But it's the presence of the Lord that makes a place a house of worship. That's why it's so important that you and I walk with the Lord. That's why it's so important that we don't just go to church and check the box and say, I went and got it over with, and now I go back and watch a football game. We go to church because we want to meet with God, right? And so when we get together to pray, we're going to talk to God. And we want to know God. We want to meet God. We want to sense his presence. Now, we may not get tingly feelings, and we may not see smoke and lights and mirrors and all that stuff. But if you're walking with the Lord, you can sense his presence when you're walking with him. And it's important that you walk in such a way that pleases him, so that his presence will want to be there. There was a time when the glory of the Lord left. You can read about it in Ezekiel. We won't read about that right now, but you can just see the Lord getting up and going here, and going there, and going there, and whoom, off he's gone. You can read it in the book of Ezekiel. And it's a very sad thing. Then the temple just became a building, and then foreigners came in and knocked it down. What a horrible thing that happened to this temple. But it started off well for the right spirit. We as a church need to be careful that that doesn't happen to Hamilton Square Baptist Church, which is why we have prayer meetings, which is why we have Bible studies, which is why we have times of fellowship and times of worship. If you've ever dedicated a new church building, and we've done it, I've done it, been involved in it, it's just really exciting. I remember we built that auditorium in Guam, and before there was any, it was a concrete building with a concrete roof and concrete floor, and before they put the carpet in it, before they put the pews in it, before they put all that in, we had the choir go in there. You remember that, Chris? Had the choir go in there, and the choir sang songs, and the songs bounced all over the place in there. It was wonderful. And then when we had the special dedication service, it's wonderful. This is what happened here, this special dedication of the holy temple. It was a very amazing and moving moment. So then you go on in 1 Kings chapter eight and you read a little further and Solomon makes some dedicatory marks, regular marks, almost like a press conference. This is what we did and this is how it happened. God helped us get this done. And it's almost like what we'll do at the annual meeting a little bit where we'll say thank you for doing this, thank you for doing that, this and that sort of thing. And then he turns and he says, now it's time to pray. And in my studies of the scriptures, this is really one of those spectacular prayers in the Bible. And so I want to read through that and make some comments as we go through it. 1 Kings 8, verse 22, Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly and spread out his hands toward heaven like this. And he said, O Lord, the God of Israel, there's no God like you in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and showing loving kindness to your servants who walk before you with all their heart. who have kept with your servant, my father David, that which you have promised him. Indeed, you have spoken with your mouth and have filled it with your hand as it is this day. Now therefore, O Lord, the God of Israel, keep with your servant, David, my father, that which you have promised him, saying, you shall not lack a man to sit on the throne of Israel, if only your sons take heed to their way, to walk before me as you have walked. Now therefore, O God of Israel, let your word, I pray, be confirmed which you have spoken to your servant, my father David. And then there's a parallel account. You know, sometimes in the Bible we have, like you have the book of First Kings and you'll have a book of First Chronicles, Second Kings, Second Chronicles. Sometimes the books kind of overlap and tell the same story from a different perspective. If you read about this in 2 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles chapter 6, you see in 1 Kings chapter 8, he starts off standing with his hands like this, praying to the Lord. But if you read in 2 Chronicles, it says that he then knelt down before the Lord. 2 Chronicles 6 verse 12, he stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands. Now Solomon had made a bronze platform, five cubits long, five cubits wide, three cubits high, and had it set in the midst of the court, and he stood on it and knelt on his knees in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven. Here we have the most powerful man in Israel, the king, the absolute monarch, and whatever he said goes, getting down on his knees, recognizing that there is a king greater than him. and that is the God of Heaven. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And 1 Kings chapter 8 verse 54 also acknowledges that he must have been down on his knees because at the end of his prayer he stands up. So, he must have been on his knees during that whole time when he was praying this prayer. So, go to the next page, and I just want to break this down into four or five different sections. We could do more, but I want you to get an idea. When we pray, what should be our spirit? What should we pray for? What should be our attitude? How should we go about this? Remember now, we're entering into the throne room. Hebrews talks about coming boldly before the throne of grace to find help in time of need. We're standing before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords when we go to prayer. Prayer. Now in the Bible, you'll see some people kneel. You'll see some people actually lay down flat on their faces and pray to God. You'll see some people standing with their hands up like this. It's not so much the posture that matters. What matters is where your heart is. Where your heart is. We need to start off, number one on page eight, by humbling yourself before the Lord. You're coming to Him. You need Him. Let me ask you this. Does God really need you? No. No, He doesn't need us. But He wants us to serve Him, right? He can do anything. If He can create a world and a universe by the word of His mouth, Don't you think he could just say, all right, everybody get safe, boom, you're safe. No, he wants to use us. And not only does he want to use us, it is our privilege to serve him because of what he's done for us. We love him and we want to please him. So we should humble ourselves before him and say, Lord, what would you have me to do? I don't want to just do my thing and then see, God put your stamp of approval on it. No, what do you want me to do, Lord? Kneeling is optional, but the heart of submission is not. It is humbling and amazing to think that God wants to hear from us. So here we have Solomon down on his knees, his hands up like this, saying, Lord, what do you want? Now traditionally, my wife and I, before the service, we were talking a little bit about this. Traditionally what we do, and I talked a little bit about it on Sunday, about my pastor's son telling on his brother because his brother had his eyes open during prayer. Technically, in a lot of ways, in our circles, we fold our hands or we put our heads down and we pray like this. And I asked my wife, I said, why do we do that? Well, it's partly because of reverence for the Lord, and part of it is so that we're not watching everybody around us, right? We can get very distracted when things go whizzing by us all the time, right? But Solomon was just so, at this point, so focused on God And I was thinking about this. It's like that little guy on the bottom of the page there. It's like his hands are up to him. Mama, pick me up. Daddy, would you pick me up? I want to be with you. I need you. I need your help. Come here. And that's almost what Solomon was saying. Now, I'm not telling you, raise your hands and pray like that. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying, that should be kind of our spirit. That should be kind of our attitude. In our circles, a lot of times, we kind of wonder, what's going on in those people? You ever been to a church where people do that? They raise their hands and they're singing and stuff like that? And I've wondered, why are they doing that? I think some people do it for show. Look at me, I'm spiritual. If that's why you're doing it, that's a waste of your strength. But if there's a genuineness, I really want to speak to the Lord. I really want to reach out to the Lord. That's a different story altogether. So I'm not advocating that you do that. I'm just saying if you do that, make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. 1 Timothy 2, verse 8 says, I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands. So the Apostle Paul agreed that that was not a bad thing to do. All right, so Solomon did this. Let's go to the next page. 1 Kings 8, verse 22. Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands towards heaven. Chronicles says he knelt as well. And verse 23 says, he said, O Lord, the God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth beneath. keeping covenant, showing loving kindness to your servants who walk before you with all their heart, who have kept with your servant, my father David, that which you have promised him. Indeed, you have spoken with your mouth and have filled it with your hand as it is this day. Now, therefore, keep with your servant, David, my father, that which you promised him. You shall not lack a man to sit on the throne of Israel. Do you see this? There's an adoration of God. You did this. You kept your promise. Lord, you kept your promise. So when we pray, one of the things we should do is humbly say, thank you, Lord, for keeping your promises. Thank him for your salvation. Thank him for strength to get to church. Thank you that you have a church. Thank you that you have a Bible that you can read. Thank him for answered prayers. Never forget to thank God when he answers your prayers. Don't you just hate it when somebody gives you something and you forget to say thank you, and suddenly they forget to say thank you? I'm guilty sometimes. I'm not sending thank you notes out as I should. I'm glad I have a wife who's a secretary. She does some of that for me. But we need to be a grateful people, humbly and grateful before God. Look at verse 26. Now therefore, O God of Israel, let your word be confirmed which you have spoken to your servant. But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house which I have built. Solomon said, you're greater than any temple that I can build. Again, you read this thing, you read the details of the temple, it's gold-plated. It's hand carved. Every stone is perfectly cut miles away, brought into place, and they fit together. And you can barely stick a piece of paper between them. It's so well engineered. It's stone. It's not going anywhere. And yet Solomon says, it's just a building. But if you move into it, it's special. Verse 28, yet have regard to the prayer of your servant and to his supplication, O Lord my God, to listen to the cry and the prayer which your servant prays before you today, that your eyes may be opened towards this house, night and day, toward the place of which you have said, my name shall be there, to listen to the prayer which your servant shall pray toward this place. He said, Lord, I need you to answer my prayers. So he's humbly coming before the Lord, acknowledging his need for God. So when we pray, it's not just saying words. You know, it's not like hocus pocus, I get it over with, okay? It's not necessarily a special formula. There's a real heart here that says, Lord, I need you. Humbly, I need you. Verse number two, second thing that I see in David's prayer. Ask God for justice for the guilty and for forgiveness for the repentant. I yesterday went to a pastors meeting for some pastors who meet with legislators here in our state. And justice is not being served in our state. We need to pray for our legislators. We need to pray that some of them just absolutely get removed out of office. There are some that are promoting awful, wicked sins, things that are going to lead to greater sex trafficking and other things like that. I'm praying specifically Scott Wiener will get removed from office. That guy's bad news. Sad thing is he's in line to take Nancy Pelosi's place. We need to pray to God to remove him from office. We need to vote accordingly. He lives in sin. He chooses sin. He defends sin. And we need to stop him. I could tell you more, but it's sick, the things that I'm hearing. We need to pray for him. And he looks like an angel when he talks to you. Be very careful. We need to pray for justice, for the guilty, and forgiveness for the repentants. Sinners are going to sin. We should agree with God that judgment is proper for those who refuse to repent. But we should also agree with God that those who repent may receive mercy. Even Scott Wiener can receive mercy. Even our governor can receive mercy. We need to pray that if they're not going to repent, that God will remove them, but that ultimately God would have his way in their lives. James 2, verse 13 says, judgment will be merciless to the one who's shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. So God's forgiveness and mercy is greater than anything anybody has ever done. One of the weirdest testimonies I ever heard. You ever heard of Jeffrey Dahmer? I heard that Jeffrey Dahmer accepted Christ. Whoa, that's hard to believe. But God can save anyone. The Apostle Paul was an awful sinner. Awful sinner. He hated Christians. They went after him. And yet God saved him, turned him around, and he became one of the greatest preachers we ever met. We've got to ask God for this balance between justice and mercy. Lord, if they're not going to repent, then judge them. If he's going to repent, Lord, bring mercy to them. 1 Kings 8, verse 30. Listen to the supplication of your servant. This is Solomon praying. And of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place, hear in heaven your dwelling place. Hear and forgive. If a man sins against his neighbor and is made to take Oath and he comes and takes an oath before your altar in this house then here in heaven and act and judge your servants condemning the wicked By bringing his way on his own head and justifying the righteous by giving him according to his righteousness How do we become righteous by repenting of our sins and accepting God's grace, right? It's not of our own. It's God's so when we pray we go humbly and We pray for a balance of justice and mercy. Thirdly, we ask God, on the next page, for help when you've reached the end of your own strength. There are times when we just don't know what to do. Times when we just hit a wall and we can't break through it. Sometimes it's because of sin, sometimes it's because of other sins, sometimes it's just because we live in a sin-curse world. And it's not our fault and nobody's done anything to us, it's just that we live in this world that's under the curse of sin. So we should not do it for our own relief, but we ask that God get the glory as he gives us relief during these times of struggle. All right? Solomon's looking down the road. He doesn't know what's coming. He doesn't know at some point this temple that he's just built's gonna get knocked down. And foreign kings are gonna come in and haul everybody off, like we read about in Daniel's day. He doesn't know all that's gonna come. But he's saying, if it does happen, we need to pray that God intervenes on our behalf. 1 Kings 8, verse 33, when your people, Israel, are defeated before an enemy, that's one time when you're going through a hard time. A big enemy comes in and defeats your nation. War, you're defeated. Because they've sinned against you if they turn to you again and confess your name and pray and make supplication to you in this house Then here in heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel and bring them back to the land which you gave to their fathers And he did that Verse 35 when the heavens are shut up, and there is no rain you're going through a time of drought like California at times because they've sinned against you and they pray toward this place and confess your name and turn from their sin when you afflict them. Then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your servants and of your people Israel. Indeed, teach them the way in which they should walk. And send rain on your land which you have given your people for an inheritance." So you're hitting the wall of an army coming and defeating you, you're hitting the wall of a drought, 37. If there's a famine in the land, a third wall that you can't get around. If there's pestilence, if there's blight or mildew, locusts or grasshopper, if their enemy besieges them in the land of their cities, whatever plague, whatever sickness COVID there is, whatever prayer or supplication is made by any man or by all your people Israel, each knowing the affliction of his own heart and spreading his hands toward this house, Then hear in heaven your dwelling place, and forgive, and act, and render to each according to all his ways, whose heart you know, for you alone know the hearts of all the sons of men, that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land which you have given to your fathers. Again, you hit a wall, you go to the Lord. Help, Lord, help, Lord, help. Number four, ask God to turn the hearts of all nations to him. Even in Solomon's day, God wanted all the races to know him. He came in to save the world, not just the Jews, right? He didn't come just to save the Americans. He didn't come in just to save the Filipinos or the Chinese or whatever you are, Germans. We got a German brother back here. He came to save the whole world, right? He's the God of the whole earth. Solomon even acknowledged that, as the king of Israel, 1 Kings 8, verse 41, also concerning the foreigner who is not of your people Israel, when he comes from a far country for your namesake, for they will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and of your outstretched arm. When he comes and prays toward this house, even the foreigner, here in heaven, the next page, your dwelling place, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name. Fear you as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by your name. Again, What Solomon was doing was not just for the Jews, it was for the whole world. You remember the Queen of Sheba came to hear Solomon speak, and she said, I haven't even heard the half of it. This is the wisest man who's ever been. And Solomon was giving glory to the Lord. God was receiving glory through all of us. Fifthly, when you go to pray, ask God to direct his people to stand strong for him wherever he sends them. In 1 Kings chapter 8, remember this is a king. He's the commander-in-chief of an army. There are other nations outside of Israel that want to attack Israel. There are other nations out there that worship false gods and do all sorts of horrible things in the name of their God. And God sometimes sent Israel to attack them, to take them over. Remember, David was the man of war who went in and conquered the promised land because the enemies had moved in. And God said to destroy them and wipe them out. That was Israel. That was their day. That was their war. We have a different kind of war. We're in spiritual warfare. We're trying to change the world by reaching them with the gospel. And that's not fighting battles as getting swords out and axes and guns and bazookas and nuclear bombs. We're going out with the sword of the Spirit. We're trying to help people come to know the Lord. But Solomon prayed in 1 Kings 8, verse 44, when your people go out to battle against their enemy, by whatever way you shall send them, God was sending them out. They weren't supposed to go on their own whims. And they pray to the Lord toward the city which you have chosen, and the house which I have built for your name. Then hear in heaven their prayer, and their supplication, and maintain their cause. And we're not gonna read through the rest of that there. You can look at that on your own in Ephesians, talking about the spiritual warfare. Sixthly, and this is the last one we'll look at here. This is not the only prayer in the Bible to use as a model. But here's something else you can think about when you go to prayer. Ask God to keep his promise to restore his prodigal people when they repent of their sins. We all know somebody who's run away from the Lord. They've heard truth, they know truth, they may have accepted the Lord and then they've fallen into sin. Israel was like that. And we know that there's none righteous, no not one. There's none that does good. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We need to constantly be praying that God will bring either sinners to repentance to accept Him as Savior, or Christians who are away from the Lord to come back and be restored to Him like the prodigal son, right? The nation of Israel at times ran away from the Lord, and Solomon was praying that when they depart, because he knew they would, he knew they would. They've been doing this since Moses' day, right? Moses says, they do this. Well, we don't want to. I don't like this. I think one of the strangest things that I ever heard, one of the most discouraging answers I ever heard from the children of Israel is when Joshua talked to them and said, we'll obey you like we obeyed Moses. I thought, oh, thanks a lot for that. That's the way people are. We, hey, guilty. You? You ever fall away from the Lord? You have the wrong attitude, wrong spirit, do the wrong thing? You might love the Lord, but you forget your eye wanders or whatever, your heart wanders. That's when you confess your sin and ask the Lord to forgive you and let him restore you. Don't make light of it, but God will restore. 1 Kings 8, verse 46. This is the end of his prayer here. When they sin against you, Israel, for there is no man who does not sin and you are angry with them and deliver them to an enemy so that they take them away captive to the land of the enemy far off or near. If they take thought in the land where they have been taken captive and repent, and make supplication to you, they confess their sins and seek forgiveness. In the land of those who have taken them captive, saying, we have sinned and have committed iniquity, we have acted wickedly. If they return to you with all their heart, with all their soul in the land of their enemies who have taken them captive, and pray to you toward their land which you have given to their fathers, the city which you have chosen, and the house which I have built for your name. Then hear their prayer and their supplication in heaven, your dwelling place for your name. Then hear their prayer and maintain their cause, and forgive your people who have sinned against you. all their transgressions which they have transgressed against you, and make them objects of compassion before those who have taken them captive, that they may have compassion on them. For they are your people and your inheritance, which you have brought forth from Egypt from the midst of their iron furnace. that your eyes may be opened to the supplication of your servant, to the supplication of your people Israel, to listen to them whenever they call to you, for you have separated them from all the people of the earth as your inheritance, as you spoke through Moses your servant when you brought our fathers forth from Egypt, O Lord God. You can almost see him praying for the prodigal son. He's away. Bring him back. And you get the impression that God's there with open arms, ready to bring them back when they come. And in the illustration there on the bottom of page 12, you see the angels of heaven rejoicing with God the Father. This is the way we need to pray, that God will bring people back to himself. So as we go to prayer tonight, let's remember these things. Go humbly. Seek justice. God, would you straighten this mess up? Do what you have to do. Help us to do our part. Seek mercy for those who are repentant. Recognize our need for him. Ask for all men, missionaries. Missionaries are working all around the world on our behalf, trying to get the gospel to people in other places. And you are in the middle of the great mission field right here in San Francisco. And the nations of the world are coming here. Pray that God will bring them to the Lord. Pray that we'll seek his direction in our service to him and desire that all people repent and come to the truth. When we come to the Lord with that kind of spirit, God's gonna answer that prayer. Because that's what he wants from us, right? He doesn't need us, but he wants to hear from us. It is our privilege to go before a God like this. And then you read a little further down. And the thing that I've always loved about 1 Kings chapter 8, I think it's around verse 56 or something like that down there. You see Solomon stands up then after his prayer and turns to the children of Israel and he says something like this. He says, you know how close we feel to the Lord right now? This is the way we should be living every day. And you come back and you be faithful to the Lord like you are right now at the dedication of this temple when you've seen all this glory and you've heard this prayer. This is the way we should be living our lives. This is why you need daily prayer time. This is why you need daily time in God's Word, so that you can keep your heart tender and on fire for the things of the Lord. It's good for us to meet together and be reminded, but then it's good for us to take it out of here and keep living it every day. Father, thank you for the opportunity we've had to study this prayer of Solomon. Lord, there's so much more we could take and dig into, but we're thankful for the few principles that we can learn. Thank you that you are a great and a holy God that hears our prayers and desires to hear from us. Help us to come before you with holy hearts and a desire to do your will. Accomplish your will through us, even as we go to prayer now. In Jesus' name we pray.