GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
2 CHRONICLES 6:32-35
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32 “As for the foreigner who is not one of your people Israel but who has come from a distant land because of your great Name, your mighty hand, and your outstretched arm– when he comes and prays toward this temple, 33 then hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigner cries out to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your Name and fear you, as your own people Israel do, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name.
God does not hear the prayers of unbelievers (Proverbs 28:9; Isaiah 59:2; John 9:31; Romans 10:14; Proverbs 6:16-19). But at what point has someone entered into the realm of believing in God, and putting his faith in God’s Son for forgiveness, that the Father will hear his prayers? Jesus has an answer for that. He said (quoting from Isaiah): “A bent reed he will not break. A smoldering wick he will not put out, until he leads justice to victory, and in his name the nations will hope” (Matthew 12:20-21). There are two things there in his words that apply to our question. First, the smallest glimmer of faith is still saving faith, and God will hear the prayer of that person. There isn’t much flame left (none at all!) in a “smoldering wick,” but God promises to allow it to be what it is, and not to put it out. Second, “In his name the nations will hope.” Trusting in the name of God and in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, is what God desires from us. He wants, as Solomon prays, that “all the peoples of the earth may know your Name and fear you as your own people Israel do.” There is no demand for additional deeds or anything of the kind. It is by faith that we are saved.
34 “When your people go to war against their enemies, wherever you send them, and when they pray to you facing this city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name, 35 then hear their prayer from heaven and their plea for mercy, and do justice for them. (1 Kings 8:41-45)
The Fifth Commandment, “You shall not murder,” protects the gift of human life. However, “neither God nor the government is included in this commandment” (Luther, Large Catechism). God reserves the right to end any human life when it is necessary under his will. He says, “I put to death and I bring to life” (Deuteronomy 32:39). As for the government, he has delegated some of his justice to man through the government, and Paul warns that the government “does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment to the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:4). Therefore such endings of life as war, capital punishment (Leviticus 20:27), the actions of police in their duties (Romans 13:5), and in some cases a private citizen in self-defense are permitted and lawful (Exodus 22:2). Now, to be sure, in the New Testament God nowhere commands any of these things, but they are permitted. While Solomon is right to extend the blessing of God’s forgiveness and justice to soldiers (which is what this part of the prayer is all about), he also recognizes that the Lord’s command for his people is that we should love one another.
When we consider our lives in the mirror of the Fifth Commandment, we must recognize that God’s will is violated not only when a person does evil (hurting, harming, plotting revenge, bullying, and oppressing), but also whenever we fail to do good to our neighbor. What if someone has the opportunity to prevent or protect someone from suffering and fails to do it? Applying the words of Jesus, it is right for us to confess: “If you send a person away naked when you could clothe him, you have let him freeze to death. If you see anyone suffer hunger and do not feed him, you have let him starve. Likewise, if you see anyone innocently condemned to death or in similar peril and do not save him although you know ways and means to do so, you have killed him. It will do you no good to plead that you did not contribute to his death by word or deed, for you have withheld your love from him and robbed him of the service by which his life might have been saved” (Large Catechism).
Praise be to God that our Savior Jesus kept the Fifth Commandment along with all the others perfectly in our place. Even when he was being put to death, he blessed the soldiers who were ordered by Pilate to do it, and he said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). And what about our sins against this commandment? “He bore our sins in his body on the tree… By his wounds you are healed” (1 Peter 2:24).
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Archives at St Paul’s Lutheran Church https://splnewulm.org/daily-devotions/ and Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: www.wlchapel.org/connect-grow/ministries/adults/daily-devotions/gwfy-archive/2024
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – 2 Chronicles 6:32-35 War and strangers