GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
2 CHRONICLES 6:18-21
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18 “But will God indeed dwell with man on earth? Heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house I have built! 19 Regard your servant’s prayer and his plea, O LORD my God. Listen to the cry and the prayer that your servant prays to you. 20 Let your eyes be open day and night toward this house, toward the place where you promised to set your Name, and listen to the prayer that your servant prays toward this place. 21 And when you hear the plea of your servant and of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place; please hear from your dwelling place in heaven. Hear and forgive. (1 Kings 8:27-30)
With his question, “Will God indeed dwell with man on earth,” Solomon condemns all of the pagan religions that believed that the temples of their gods were as much prisons as shrines. A god (or statue of a god) that was set into a little box or platform in a shrine had influence in that shrine, and perhaps throughout that village or cluster of tents, they believed, but not really over the hill, or in the next valley. This is why the theft of his household gods was such a problem for Laban (Genesis 31:19). His superstitious daughter stole them either to make them her own private good-luck deities, or to deprive him of their help (as a kind of curse) or both.
Solomon correctly says, “Heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you.” The Bible’s three heavens begin with the heavens or skies where the birds fly and where the rains come from (2 Samuel 21:10). The second heaven is where the sun, moon and stars move (Isaiah 13:10). The third heaven is where God’s throne is (Psalm 123:1), but even that, Solomon says, cannot really contain God. He is infinite. If the infinite cannot be contained in the world’s atmosphere, nor in the farthest reaches of space, nor even truly in the dwelling he has made for himself in Paradise, then he certainly cannot be contained in this temple of stone and wood. But God in his compassion permits himself to be worshiped here. He wanted the Israelites to think of him especially as a true God and as one God. Therefore, one shrine. He did not want his priesthood to be divided in any way, therefore, one shrine. He wanted his people to remain united by their faith and worship. Therefore, one shrine.
Solomon prays that God would hear the prayers of the people who pray here in the temple, and of those who pray toward this temple. By facing Jerusalem, or, in Jerusalem, facing the temple, people would be led to remember that God had one dwelling on earth until the Savior came in the flesh. This is why in the Book of Daniel the prophet “went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem,” and he prayed there three times a day (Daniel 6:10). We are not required or even invited to pray in any certain direction according to the compass today. Scripture does not tell us to face west or east, but to turn our hearts to God and to pray with faith, believing that we will be heard. “Let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).
For a person not to pray is a hallmark of unbelief, and tries the patience of God (Isaiah 7:12). He invites us to pray, “therefore we must strengthen ourselves against unbelief and let the kingdom of God be the first thing we pray for” (Large Catechism). We don’t need to go on and on with long and overly-thorough prayers, “babbling like pagans” (Matthew 6:7). Simply pray for what you need, and trust that God will give precisely what you need; that is the summary of “give us today our daily bread.” Whether you pray about the Gospel’s success in the world (2 Thessalonians 3:1) or just to see your loved ones again (1 Thessalonians 3:10), pray. God listens, God hears, and God will answer.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – 2 Chronicles 6:18-21 Pray, but be not tedious