When God Shows Up & Shows Out, His People Know It - Episode #166

2 Chronicles chapters 6 & 7

 

V 12 Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of the entire assembly of Israel and spread out his hands. (Is this not a beautiful example of public prayer?) 13b he knelt down on his knees in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven. 14 and he said, “O LORD, God of Israel, there is no god like You in heaven or on the earth, keeping covenant and showing mercy and lovingkindness to Your servants who walk before You (in obedience) with all their heart.” (Make note of something here - Solomon is speaking out loud a profound truth, one that changes how we pray and one that we should say out loud to one another, as he did here before all Israel, this is an example of how we should follow the NT admonition to encourage one another all the more as we see that day approaching, and we are seeing the day drawing nearer, for sure…there is no god like the God of Israel, keeping covenant and showing mercy and loving kindness to His servants who walk before Him in obedience with all their heart….are we obedient? Are we obedient with all our heart? If so, we ought to expect to be on the receiving end of this promise, and it is a promise, this is part of God’s character and He cannot be otherwise, so it is a promise to us, because what God does for us is tied closely to who He is, and He can never be less than fully God, always faithful, keeping every promise, keeping covenant - in the present tense, right now…He will show us mercy. And believe me you, His mercy toward us is remarkable, we want it, we need it, so let’s walk before the Lord in obedience.)

Ch 7, v 1-3 When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the (Shekinah) glory and brilliance of the LORD filled the house. The priests could not enter the house of the LORD because the glory and brilliance of the LORD had filled the LORD’s house. When all the people of Israel saw how the fire came down and saw the glory and brilliance of the LORD upon the house, they bowed down on the stone pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and praised the LORD, saying, “For He is good, for His mercy and lovingkindness endure forever.”

(What can we learn from this? Well, when God shows up and shows out, His people know it. Or at least, they ought to know it! Do we ever miss it because we are looking for something else? Maybe we’ve put God in a box in some manner, and we aren’t expecting this because our expectation is for that, and we miss it. But can you imagine not seeing this event? The sacrifice Solomon made after God’s glory was put on display, per the next couple of verses, was 22000 oxen and 120000 sheep. Wow! You ever made a sacrifice like that? It cost you something, it wasn’t your leftovers or the extra you have lying around, but it came at a cost and you were thrilled to give it to the Lord? If not, I hope you get that opportunity. Sooner rather than later, because there’s nothing quite like it. 

 

A little later in chapter 7, the Lord appeared to Solomon by night and told him some things. Vs 13 and 14, and remember this is God speaking. “If I shut up the heavens so that no rain falls, or if I command locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence and plague among My people, and my people, who are called by My Name, humble themselves, and pray and seek (crave, require as a necessity) My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear (them) from heaven, and forgive their sin and heal their land.” That’s a direct quote from the Bible, the very words of God. Do we believe this? Do we do this? Do we even really know how to humble ourselves before Him? Have we ever done that? I know I’m being a bit frank here, but if we can’t be nothing else, can’t we at least be frank? Particularly when it comes to the word of God? Let’s be frank about it - it says what it says, and here it says God’s people need to humble themselves when hard times come on their land. Yes, this is to Israel. And yes, I think we can, and should, apply it to the NT grafted in big C church. We have problems in America. We have sin problems in our country. It does not say that everyone, those who don’t know the Lord, don’t want to know the Lord, are from differing religions, atheists, and so on, that they must humble themselves and pray and seek and crave God’s face as a requirement and necessity…it says His people. That’s you and that's me. Do you require as a necessity, you cannot do without it, God’s face? And do you and I really turn from our wicked ways? Again, we can’t only expect the lost, who don’t follow Jesus, who have not experienced Christ revealed to them, as it talks about in the book of Hebrews, expect them to turn from their wicked ways. The implication here is that God’s people can indeed have wicked ways and He wants His people to turn from those wicked ways. Turn away, put it behind your back, literally turn your back on the wicked ways in your life. Don’t know what those are, on a personal level? Easy way to find out. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you any wickedness in your heart, your mind, your life. He’ll answer that prayer, and then you need to turn your back on what He reveals. Spoiler alert: it will be different than you think it will be, what He reveals, and you may have to really make the decision to turn on it, to be done with it, to crucify your flesh in that part of your life. Couple of areas I’ll mention that can be controversial in the Church…worship of our children. Misuse of our time, the most precious commodity God gives us and one that cannot be reclaimed once it is squandered. Being afraid to look enough like Jesus that the world sees us as a peculiar people. Just a few things that come to mind, to give you kind of an example of what the Lord may reveal to you if you are brave enough to pray and ask Him what your own wicked ways are in His eyes. And that’s what matters, what He says, above all and over all and beyond all else. I cannot do anything outside of pray for other people and their messes. But regarding my own? I can yield to the Lord day by day and see Him make a molehill out of my mountain. And He gets all the glory. 

 

I’m going to wrap up this episode and also, quick fyi, I will be out of town for over a week before and during Thanksgiving, so there may be a couple of extra days before episode number 167 releases. But I plan to share a couple of links from earlier episodes, take those out of the vault, and I’ll be sharing that on social media. So watch for those posts on IG and X (Twitter, whatever) and FB.

And I’ll see ya back here after Thanksgiving! Bye bye.