Consecration: Praying with King Solomon

Last time we looked at 2 Chronicles 6 and Solomon’s dedication prayer. Let’s look now at 2 Chronicles 7 and see how God responded to the prayers and sacrifices in the temple, and what this means to us as believers now.

Fire from Heaven

2 Chronicles 7
7 As soon as Solomon finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple.² And the priests could not enter the house of the LORD, because the glory of the LORD filled the LORD’s house. ³ When all the people of Israel saw the fire come down and the glory of the LORD on the temple, they bowed down with their faces to the ground on the pavement and worshiped and gave thanks to the LORD, saying, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.”

⁴ Then the king and all the people offered sacrifice before the LORD. ⁵ King Solomon offered as a sacrifice 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated the house of God. ⁶ The priests stood at their posts; the Levites also, with the instruments for music to the LORD that King David had made for giving thanks to the LORD—for his steadfast love endures forever—whenever David offered praises by their ministry; opposite them the priests sounded trumpets, and all Israel stood.

God responds by consecrating the temple, sending fire from heaven to consume the offering, displaying his acceptance of their worship and making the Temple a Holy Place. When the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in you he consecrates you and because of Christ you are made a Holy Place for God to dwell. His last words were “It is finished.” No more blood needs to be shed for sin. I love that they worshiped through music and that David’s legacy of worship continued to be part of temple worship. It’s why our church services are structured to include corporate worship. God is worthy of our praises, for his steadfast love endures forever. And I’m so glad we don’t have to slaughter animals at church because Jesus was the last required sacrifice.

⁷ And Solomon consecrated the middle of the court that was before the house of the LORD, for there he offered the burnt offering and the fat of the peace offerings, because the bronze altar Solomon had made could not hold the burnt offering and the grain offering and the fat.

⁸ At that time Solomon held the feast for seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great assembly, from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of Egypt. ⁹ And on the eighth day they held a solemn assembly, for they had kept the dedication of the altar seven days and the feast seven days. ¹⁰ On the twenty-third day of the seventh month he sent the people away to their homes, joyful and glad of heart for the prosperity that the LORD had granted to David and to Solomon and to Israel his people.

Many bible scholars believe the Temple dedication was an extension of that year’s Feast of Tabernacles when Israel would live in tents as a remembrance of their time wandering the desert after they were delivered from Egypt. What a great culmination that God had led them home. Today in our churches we celebrate communion as our remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection. When you go home from church fellowship it should be “joyful and glad of heart” for our deliverance from sin and death.

If My People Pray

¹¹ Thus Solomon finished the house of the LORD and the king’s house. All that Solomon had planned to do in the house of the LORD and in his own house he successfully accomplished. ¹² Then the LORD appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him: “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. ¹³ When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, ¹⁴ if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. ¹⁵ Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place. ¹⁶ For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. ¹⁷ And as for you, if you will walk before me as David your father walked, doing according to all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and my rules,¹⁸ then I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to rule Israel.’

¹⁹ “But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, ²⁰ then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you, and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. ²¹ And at this house, which was exalted, everyone passing by will be astonished and say, ‘Why has the LORD done thus to this land and to this house?’ ²² Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore he has brought all this disaster on them.’”

God says “Yes!” When the people repent and pray he will hear them. Solomon dedicated the temple but only God could consecrate it as a holy place. Then God says “But.” He makes Solomon some conditional promises foreshadowing the same disasters from Solomon’s prayer and then one upping it saying that eventually Israel’s disobedience will cause the destruction of the temple. In 586 BC Babylon besieged Jerusalem, destroyed the city and burned the Temple to the ground. The temple wasn’t restored until the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, after their captivity, when Israel repented and returned to serving God. The history of Israel is a fascinating roller coaster ride. If you’ve never read through the old testament I highly recommend it.

I want to talk a little bit about that famous verse and how it applies to our prayer lives both personally and corporately. 2 Chronicles 7:14 says, “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

God asks 4 things of us and will do 3 things in return.

1. We must be humble. There is only one God and we are not Him. The humble kneel with open hands and full understanding of God’s position, who dwells in heaven and light unimaginable, and our position, which is mortal, earthly and full of sin.
2. We must pray. The only way we can communicate with God is prayer. We can worship God in all kinds of ways, including prayer, but that intimate prayer communication is available to us because of Christ and his sacrifice.
3. We must seek his face. We have a lot of wants and needs in our lives but only God can satisfy the deep needs of our hearts and souls. The ESV study bible says “To seek God means to orient one’s life toward him in active faith and obedience, to be diligent in fulfilling the commands of the Mosaic law, to oppose idolatry, and especially to support and participate in the authorized worship of the temple. Those who seek God experience his blessings, typically in the form of large families, building projects, riches and honor, military strength and success, and peace for the land.”
4. We must turn from our wicked ways. Again, the ESV study bible explains, “the converse of seek is to forsake God, which includes apostasy and idolatry, the neglect and abuse of the temple and its institutions, despising the word of prophets, and egregious violence. God’s punishment for forsaking him and his law includes defeat and despoiling by foreign enemies, sickness and death for disobedient individuals, and forfeiture of the land and exile for the people.”

When we are humble and pray and seek and turn what does God do?

1. He hears from heaven. Psalm 34:17-18 says,
   When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears
   and delivers them out of all their troubles.
   The LORD is near to the brokenhearted
   and saves the crushed in spirit.
2. He forgives our sins. No one else can do that. We rack up a lifetime of sin against God, and the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is forgiveness in Christ and eternal life with him.
3. He heals our land. This applies to Israel, but because we’ve been grafted in by Christ I think we can have reasonable hope that God promises this to all Christians who call on his name. We are living in dark times but there is so much hope in the Lord. Our nation has never seen division and turmoil like what we have now. Take seriously the call to pray for our nation and its leaders. To pray for the Gospel and salvation to spread through all the nations.

The temple brought Israel one step closer to personal relationship with the Lord. During the Exodus Moses was the mediary. When the temple was completed that was the place of prayer and sacrifice. The High Priest was the mediator, but only one day a year could he enter the Most Holy place, and only after special sacrifices for his own sins.

All the old sacrifices and prayers were made at the Temple “in the name of the Lord,” But once Christ came and tore the veil he gave us full personal access to God. He is not only our High Priest but our Savior and final mediator giving us full access to God. He sends his Spirit to live in us which cries out, “Abba Father!”  He consecrates us and abides in us. We don’t look to the temple anymore but we “behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Now we can pray anytime, anywhere in “the name of Jesus” who was the last sacrifice God required, and he hears us. What an amazing truth.

Take advantage of this and pray right now, thanking God for what a wondrous love he has for us that he gave his Son so that we can have forgiveness of sin and eternal life in Christ. Ask God to give you opportunities to share this great news with everyone you know.