Well, as I mentioned before, it's the first Sunday evening of the month, and we focus our hearts, especially in this service on praying. Before we do that, I want to stir you up to pray with me as we read from the word of God. So turn to the book of Second Chronicles, chapter number six in your Bible, Second Chronicles, chapter six, verses twelve through forty. in your Bible might have a heading that says something like Solomon's Prayer of Dedication. Here's the completion and dedication of the Old Testament temple, the dwelling place of God's amongst his people. And here is the dedication service in which that temple was consecrated for the Lord. And we'll notice especially the theme of praying and prayer. So 2 Chronicles 6 verses 12 through 40, the wonderful Word of God says this to us tonight. 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 a had made a bronze platform, five cubits long, five cubits wide and three cubits high, and had 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, Oh, Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven or on earth, keeping covenants and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their hearts, who have kept with your servant David, my father, what you declared to him. You spoke with your mouth and with your hand has 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 son pays 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, which you have spoken to your servant David. But will God indeed dwell with man on the earth? Behold, Heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you. How much less this house that I have built. Yes, have regard to the prayer of your servants 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 towards 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 servants and of your people, Israel, when they pray toward this place and listen from heaven, your dwelling place. And when you hear forgive the man's sins against his neighbor and is made to take an oath and comes and swears his oath before your altar in his house, in this house, then hear from heaven and act and judge your servants, repaying the guilty by bringing his conduct on his own head and vindicating the righteous by rewarding him according to his righteousness. If your people, Israel, are defeated before the enemy because they have sinned against you and they turn again and acknowledge your name and pray and plead with you in this house, then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your people, Israel, and bring them again to the land that you gave to them and to their fathers. When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, if they pray toward this place and acknowledge your name and turn from their sin when you afflict them, then here in heaven, And forgive the sin of your servants, your people, Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk and grant rain upon your land, which you have given to your people as an inheritance. If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence or blight or mildew or locust or caterpillar, if their enemies besiege them in the land at their gates, whatever plague, whatever sickness there is, whatever prayer, whatever plea is made by any man or by all your people, Israel, each knowing his own affliction and his own sorrow and stretching out his hands toward his house. Then hear from heaven your dwelling place and forgive and render to each whose heart, you know, according to all those ways for you, you only know the heart of the children of mankind, that they may fear you and walk in your ways all the days that they live in the land that you gave to our fathers. Likewise, When a foreigner who is not of your people, Israel, comes from a far country for the sake of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm, when it comes in praise toward this house here from heaven, 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 that your name and fear you as your people, Israel, and that they may know that this house that I have built is called by your name. If your people go out to battle against their enemies, by whatever way you shall send them, and they pray to you toward the city that you have chosen the house that I built for your name, then hear from heaven their prayer and their plea and maintain their cause. If they sin against you, for there is no one who does not sin and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy so that they are carried away captive to a land far or near. Yet, if they turn their heart, the land to which they have been carried captive and repent and plead with you in the land of their captivity, saying we have sins and have acted perversely and acted wickedly. If they repent with all their mind, with all their heart in the land of their captivity, to which they were carried captive and pray toward their lands, which you gave to their fathers, the city that you have chosen and the house that I have built for your name. Then hear from heaven your dwelling place, their prayer and their pleas and maintain their cause and forgive your people who have sinned against you. Now, oh, my God, let your eyes be open and your ears attentive to the prayer of this place. So far, God's word and he is always right upon our hearts and causes to live according to it. Well, before us is one of the great high points in all of the story of Scripture, from the beginning of creation to the coming of Christ, to the end of all things. But this story, the story of the temple of God, the dwelling of God, the house of God being built and being established and being dedicated to the high points, especially for the Old Testament, because God himself now, at least physically speaking, at least pictorially speaking, God comes to dwell in their midst in a very graphic, in a very tangible way. And so this is the house that the Lord had said to David, who himself wanted to build it. The Lord said he could not build it, but instead that his own son would build it. That has come to reality, and so by Solomon's decrees and by Solomon's hands and by all the works and labors of thousands upon thousands of servants and laborers, the house of God came to be built and completed. And God's great presence visibly pictured in the fire and the pillar of cloud came to dwell in that temple. God transferred his presence, as it were, from the tabernacle where God was dwelling and to this great, not temporary, but permanent house, not a tent, but a house. not wandering throughout the wilderness, but now fixed firmly on Mount Zion. And so there's a time in which it is completed and a time for it to be dedicated. And we see that here where Solomon leads the people and they all assemble together with the priests and they come to give themselves to God. Solomon leads as king, as heads. The priests gather, we are told elsewhere, with their trumpets and with their instruments to sing and to pray. The people came together, bowing upon their knees, bowing their head to the earth, giving themselves, dedicating this house. For prayer. And it should be instructive for us to think about the temple being dedicated, that it was dedicated not by the works of their hands, not by the boast and the brags of all the things that they have done for so many years to build it, how far they had taken the cedars from Lebanon, how they had quarried rocks from Sheba and so forth. But here is dedication in its essence to pray. To give everything back to God and to render to him glory and honor. And we see Solomon's prayer. He first of all recounts in verses 14 through 18, he recounts the promises of God and how God was faithful to his promise. He had made a covenant with his people that he that is that he bound himself. He relates to them as a father to a son, as a God to a people. And he had promised to David to have a house built for the Lord's name. And God, we are told here in this prayer, he kept that promise. So Solomon recounts the faithfulness of God. He begins by acknowledging God's goodness and His grace and His mercy. Then in verses 19 through 21, Solomon pleads with the Lord to hear prayer. He begs God to hear the people's prayers, and then when he does hear their prayers to forgive, and we go on to see in verses 22 through 40, that great litany of prayers. When a sin happens like this, or when this situation happens, hear from heaven your dwelling place. Hear them. Answer them, God. But I want to focus especially upon just verses 19 to 21 for a few moments here and ask ourselves what we learn about prayer from Solomon's prayer. What does his prayer have to do with us here as believers in Christ, no longer having a temple to which we go, a place where God himself and his glory dwells in fire and clouds? We don't see that here. What does Solomon's prayer say to us and how is it instructive for us to pray? as individuals, couples, families and church. And that is just three brief points. The first two are just going to explain a little bit about those verses. And then finally, some principles for us and ways in which this prayer should impact us and instruct us. And may God, by His Holy Spirit, stir us up to pray tonight. Notice, first of all, here, the people's prayer, the people's prayer. In verse 19, Solomon praying on their behalf, notice notice what he says about the prayer and how he describes what he's doing. He prays and he expresses the prayer of your servant, his plea, he said, and the cry. And then again, in verse 20, we read of the prayer that your servants offer. Well, what about the people? Here is Solomon praying, and as the servant of the Lord, as the king, as the anointed, he's praying that God would listen and hear his prayer. But what about their prayer? The people who would gather? Well, Solomon is a, as a king and as an anointed king, he's praying as their representative on their behalf. Just like our Lord Jesus Christ is our king, prophet, priest. He intercedes for us with intercessions and prayers and groans. He lifts up our prayers to the Father's throne. And so Solomon is a picture of Christ here leading the church in prayer and dedication and offering of itself. Verse 21, notice again, he speaks of the pleas of your servant and of your people. Israel. When they pray. The people's prayer numbers of terms. That are used here. It's just very simply the terms prayer. Please. Prayer that is verbal offering up of desires and petitions and intercessions to God. Prayer, lifting up our voices to God in worship and adoration. Prayer, talking to God as he himself talks to us in his word. Lifting up those petitions in verbal ways and instructive for us to pray verbally, to pray out loud to God. As James says, we have not because we ask not. We are to pray, to lift up the things in our hearts, the concerns and desires and wishes and wants, all to God in a verbal way, to pray. He speaks of pleas, notice. He speaks of God listening and regarding, having his ear bent down to his plea and the pleas of the Israelites. A plea is more urgent than prayer. Prayer is just a verbal way of expressing the things in the heart. A more urgent, expectant, earnest offering up of prayer in a time of great need. Have you ever pleaded with someone or even use that word to plead? Maybe a creditor comes calling or knocking in the old days. Maybe a friend wants to choose a certain course of life or to do something. Have you ever pledged with that person not to do that? To plead with them, to beg them, to urgently and earnestly from your heart, ask them not to do something or to do something. That's what Solomon is speaking of here, to plead with God. We read that later on the prayer where he speaks of God hearing them, that he would hear from heaven and their plea, verse 36, maintain their cause when they would go out to battle to hear their plea. God save us. God give us success. God give us the victory. The feeling of desperation, isn't it, to plead with someone? That you are, as you are using your words to plead with them, you're trying, as it were, to get into their mind and to change their hearts. Sort of the spiritual way of twisting someone's arm, the verbal way of doing this, pleading with someone. And Solomon also speaks about crying out to the Lord, not just praying, which we so perfunctorily do, not even pleading with God, but crying out to God, not just desperately laying out our cause, but laying ourselves out before God, even crying out to Him. We've come to the end of our rope. We've come to the end of all that we can think and do. All we can do is cry. There's no one else to go to. There's nothing else to say. There's no one else to plead with, but to cry before God. So Solomon in these verses is expressing to us how we ought to pray, to pray, to plead, to cry. The people's prayer, as he offered it on their behalf to petition God, to serve God, to love God, but to do so in certain ways, praying, pleading, crying, Notice the Lord's promise. Secondly, Solomon prays and we plead with God and we cry out to God because God has made a promise about our prayers and our pleadings and our crying. We see that in verse 20. that your eyes may be open day and night toward this house, the place where you have promised to set your name. We are praying, God, we are pleading with you, we are crying out to you because you promised. You promised to put your name in that holy place and that when we pray towards that place, you will hear us. You told us that God. And the purpose for God promising that. Is this verse 21, that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place and again, and to listen to the pleas of your servant and of your people, Israel, when they pray toward this place. God promised them that when they pray, his eyes were open to them, he would see them praying and his ears were open, he would hear their prayer. Why? Because he would listen. Promise to listen. Notice, it's not just that he looks upon the prayer, but he listens to the prayer, not just that he notices the syllables and the noises, but he takes these prayers to himself. As they pray towards that holy place. As he heard their pleas, he listens for someone to their pleas when they pray toward this place. God has made a promise. He's promised us that when we pray in Jesus name in those days, of course, it was the prayer of the temple, but when we pray in Christ's name, he promises to hear us and to answer us. But we don't have a temple. Where is God going to turn his eyes today to us? Where is God promised? Where's the place of his presence? And where's the place where he said, when you pray to that place, I will see the prayer. I will hear the prayer. I will answer the prayer. Where's God said that there's no temple for us anymore. There's no holy place that we have to face east. To mentally and symbolically lift our prayers and point them far away, where can we go? Solomon's prayer is instructive for us because God has always set his name in a certain place. He's always told us to pray to a certain location. The difference now for us here as believers in Christ is that we don't have a physical earthly temple. What we do have is this. And the word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. That word in John 1, 14, the word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. It's the same term that's used in the Old Testament to describe God being a tabernacle for us, making his residence, his dwelling place. He locates himself in a certain place. The word became flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we behold, we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten, full of grace and truth. Jesus Christ is the true tabernacle of God. Again, John chapter two describes the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ once said, destroy this temple and in three days I shall raise it up. His own disciples thought he was crazy for saying that, but John tells us after he rose again from the dead, they remember the saying that he was speaking of the resurrection of his body, the temple of his body. So where do we pray? What's the location to which we give our prayers and our pleas and our cries? Whereas God said he would hear all those prayers to that one location and answer them as Christ. He's made a promise to us. That when we pray to the one true God in the name of Jesus Christ, that is on his authority, on his promise, on the basis of all that he's done for us. He won't just see our lips moving, but he will hear every single word we say. He will know every thought and feeling that we have when we cry to him. It's promised us that when we pray in Jesus name, he will answer us. He will give us all that we want, all that we need, all that we desire. If we ask it in his name. He's not only promised to hear, he's promised to act. Notice that in verse twenty one again. Solomon's praying this not as a pious wish, he's praying this because this reflects the reality of what God has already said to us in his word and listen from having your dwelling place and when you hear forgive. We have that long list of their sins, their desires, their struggles, their anxieties. If this happens, if that happens, if this happens, if that happens, God has promised to act. Not just to hear, but to act. The Lord's promise is the basis for us, the people's praying. Our praying is on the foundation of Christ and Christ alone. What we learn. Terms of praying from these words. Just briefly to mention a few things. Not just that there is the prayer of Solomon in the terms that are used and not just that the promise to us. But we learn here from Solomon's prayer that. The people of God, the church, they are characterized by being a people of prayer. Notice that. What we're doing here tonight is exactly what God says to us in this passage that we are a praying people. The dedication of the temple was not, again, that they brought all the best of their cedars and their quarried rocks and their tools that they had shined, that they had used over the course of years. Not that they came with their hands and showed God the blistered hands, the bruised feet. But they prayed. Solomon's prayer of dedication teaches us that. What we do here, and I trust and pray that we will do the rest of our week as we arise in the morning, as we go to sleep at night, is that we pray. It's the mark of a true Christian. for us to pray should be as natural to us as Christians as it is to breathe the air around us. It's as simple as opening our mouths and crying out to God the desires in our hearts, even as we open our mouths to breathe in the air and to exhale the oxygen, the carbon dioxide. So we are characterized as a praying people, first of all. Secondly, we have a God The passage describes when Solomon begins the prayer, in verse 18 it is, we have a God who is not only infinitely transcendent, that means infinite, meaning there's no bounds to God. He's transcendent, meaning he's above us, he's beyond us, he's limitless. He says, will God indeed dwell with man on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven, not just the universe that we can somehow comprehend its size. The highest heaven, as far as the imagination can go, cannot contain God, much less this little house that I built, he said. We have a God who is not only infinitely transcendent above all creaturely constraints like that old temple, but We have a God who's intimately present. With us. And Solomon describes this. Theological reality about God by describing or attributing to God body parts, his eyes, his eyes, see the place, the temple, his ears here. He doesn't have a body like many, doesn't have eyes and ears and a nose and a mouth and so forth, but it's as if he does because he's that close to us. His eyes see every single move that we make, his ears hear every single syllable, his heart feels and is open to us. Will we take advantage of that? That we have a God who's so far above us, but yet so loving that he condescends down to us, that he describes himself like us, having ears, eyes, hands, feet and so forth. What do we learn? Well, certainly. This God actually desires. And delights in your prayers. This God is unconstrained, infinite desires. That means he wants you to pray. And he delights in those things he loves to hear. Just like a father, a mother loves to hear the laughter, the sounds, the noises, the words of their children. God wants to hear us. He doesn't need our prayers. Our prayers don't make him more powerful, more God. They don't make him feel more as more what he is. He's God. And he desires our prayers. And when we pray, he delights in them. The Lord takes pleasure in his people, the psalmist says, takes pleasure in us. Because our prayers are described in the Old and New Testaments like the incense that was offered up upon the altar to God. It was like a sweet smelling aroma that God delighted. He'd love to smell it. Symbolic of their prayers. So we are to be characterized by praying. We have a God who is close to us in our prayers, a God who desires and delights in our prayers. And finally, we have a God who uses our prayers. Prayer is one of the greatest proofs in our lives of the sovereign power of God. Because we humble ourselves, we bow ourselves, we give it all up to him. We can do nothing. We're helpless. He's powerful. We're not. But it's also one of the most encouraging things. For us to pray that God. Uses in his mysterious will, our prayers. Why, because he's decided to do that, how do these are prayers, only he understands and knows completely. But he delights, desires them and he uses them. How many of us who came to faith later in life can look back and remember and even hear from people, all those who prayed for us to come to the Lord? And how many of us have prayed and it seems like an inexhaustible amount of prayers, and we seem exasperated by it. We don't see the answer to it. But yet we are called to persevere, to pray for others who, like us, have yet to come to Him, just like we were when we were once outside of Christ. Will you pray? Will you be heard by God? Will God delight in your words? Before we do pray together, listen to this from John Hooper. He was one of the great English reformers in the 16th century. And he said this about prayer, he said, we are never better affected, meaning our affections, the deepest part of our being. We are never better affected into God than when we pray. Yes, when we pray, how often are our affections many times distracted? How little reverence do we show to the grand mystery of that God unto whom we speak? How little remorse of our own miseries, how little taste of the sweet influence of his tender mercy do we feel? Are we not as unwilling many times to begin and as glad to make an end as if God, in saying, call upon me. Had set us a very burdensome task. Calls us to pray Calls us to pray, not because it is a burden to us or a burden to him. It's a delight. We are praying people. We're the children of God. He's a powerful God. He hears them all promise to do so. And he uses those prayers to his great and grand purpose. Amen.