Episode Transcript
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Let's turn now to second chronicles chapter
six. Second Chronicles six, I'll be
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reading verses twenty two through forty two. These verses conclude Solomon's prayer. So
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second chronicles chapter six, starting at
Verse Twenty Two, here we have several
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petitions, requests, prayer, requests
that Solomon Asks of God. Let's go
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our attention to God's word. If
a man sins against his neighbor and is
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made to take an oath and comes
and sweares his oath before your altar in
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this house, then hear from Heaven
and act and Judge Your servants, repaying
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the guilty by bringing his conduct on
his own head and vindicating the righteous by
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rewarding him according to his righteousness.
If your people, Israel, are defeated
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before the enemy because they have sinned
against you, and they turn again and
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acknowledge your name and pray and plead
with you in this house, then hear
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from Heaven and forgive the sin of
your people, Israel and bring them again
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to the land that you gave to
them and to their fathers, when heaven
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is shut up and there is no
rain, because they have sinned against you.
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If they pray towards this place and
acknowledge that your name and turn from
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their sin. When you afflict them, then here in heaven, in Heaven,
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and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel, when you
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teach them the good way in which
they should walk, and grant reign upon
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your land, which you have given
to your people as an inheritance, if
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there is famine in the land,
if there is pestilence or blight or mildew
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or locust or Caterpillar, if their
enemies besieged them in the land at their
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gates, whatever plague, whatever sickness
there is, whatever proud prayer, whatever
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plea is made by any man or
by all your people, Israel, each
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knowing his own affliction and his own
sorrow and stretching out his hands towards this
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house, then here from your heaven, your dwelling place, and forgive and
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render to each whose heart you know, according to all his ways. For
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you, you only know the hearts
of the children of mankind, that they
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may fear you and walk in your
ways all the days that they live in
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the land that you gave to our
fathers. Likewise, when a foreigner who
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is not of your people, Israel, comes from a far country, for
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the sake of your great name and
your mighty hand and your outstretched arm,
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when he comes and prays toward this
House here from heaven, your dwelling place,
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and do all do according to all
for which the foreigner calls to you,
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in order that all the peoples of
the Earth May know your name and
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fear you, as do your people
Israel, and that they may know that
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this House that I have built is
called by your name. If your people
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go out to battle against their enemies, by whatever way you shall send them,
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and they pray to you toward this
city that you have chosen and the
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House that I have built for your
name, then hear from heaven their prayer
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and their plea and maintain their cause. If they sin against you, for
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there is no one who does not
sin, and you are angry with them
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and give them to an enemy so
that they are carried away captive to a
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land far or near. Yet,
if they turned their heart in the land
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to which they have been carried captive
and repent and plead with you in the
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land of their captivity, saying we
have sinned and acted perversely and wickedly,
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if they repent with all their mind
and with all their heart, in the
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land of their captivity, to which
they were carried captive, and pray toward
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their land, which you gave to
their fathers, the city which you have
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chosen, in the House that I
have built for your name. Then here
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from heaven, your dwelling place,
their prayer and their please and maintain their
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cause and forgive your people who've sinned
against you. Now, Oh my God,
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let your eyes be open and your
ears attentive to the prayer of this
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place. And now arise, oh
Lord God, and go to your resting
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place, you and the Ark of
your might. Let your priests, so
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Lord God, be clothed with salvation
and let your saints rejoice in your goodness.
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Oh Lord God, do not turn
away the face of your anointed one.
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Remember your steadfast love for David,
your servant. This ends the reading
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of God's word. May Be seated. Well, a few things to note
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and remember before we get going and
focus on the content of Solomon's prayer.
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Are these. There's lots and lots
of phrases. That will be confusing,
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I think, unless you remember where
Solomon is. You notice throughout his prayer
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he keeps referencing this place this land, this house. So in your mind's
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eye, if you can just position
yourself in Israel, in this land and
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look at Solomon, he's there in
the city of Jerusalem, by the top,
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by the temple that he is just
built, and he's praying in front
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of the in front of the temple, and he's talking about that place,
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that house, that city, that
land. But he has in his mind's
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eye not just the place that they
are in, but two others. One
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not a physic coal place, but
a heavenly place. He prays to God,
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who has promised to dwell with the
people in this temple. But he
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also you remember him saying earlier,
that God does not is not confined to
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a places like this, but it
need. God dwells everywhere and in heaven
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itself, and so he prays to
God, who is in heaven. He
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Asks God to answer from there.
The second place Solomon has in mind is
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outside of Israel, foreign lands,
foreign places, and he anticipates a time
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when the people will be led away
to a foreign place and will desire to
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come back in. Also, he
anticipates people who come from foreign places to
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be close to God, to draw
near to him. So, as we
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consider this. As we consider Solomon's
prayers, he asks these for these various
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things, we come to understand something
about our own prayers. So, just
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as we did last time, I
want to give our attention to Solomon's prayer
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and see what we might learn of
God and the kinds of prayers that please
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him. Last time we considered particularly
the how we address God. Tonight we
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consider what we ask of him.
Solomon makes several prayer requests, or sometimes
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they're called petitions, or he Solomon, uses the word plea. So when
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you heard the word please, that's
not as in May I please, but
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a please is another word to say
a request, a asking for something.
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I please, and that's what I
want to focus on tonight, to consider
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our prayers of repentance and petition,
to consider our plea before God and asking
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things of him. And as we
look at this prayer, this last part
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of this prayer, what will come
to learn is that for anything we need,
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particularly for the forgiveness of sins,
because of Jesus, we can find
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favor with God. Or, to
put it even more simply, or rather
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simply to put it simply, because
of Jesus, if you draw near to
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God, he will draw near to
you. So let's think about Solomon's prayer.
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You notice that it's divided up into
these several requests, many of them
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beginning with the word if. In
each of these situations, he anticipates something
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that might happen in the future.
If this happens, then do this Lord.
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If this happens, then do this. And in almost all of these
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requests, that is he that he
asks, if not all of them,
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he's essentially saying, when this bad
thing happens, please bring about a good
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thing. When this bad thing happens, bring about a good thing, and
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he speaks about that both in a
corporate sense, meaning all of Israel,
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and in an individual sense. You
get that particularly in verse is to the
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Paragraph of Verse Twenty Eight, where
he says whatever sickness there is, or
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whatever prayer, whatever plea is made
by any man or by all your people,
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Israel, Psalomon has a sense that
the people will be praying together as
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a group. They will be addressing
the Lord in a corporate way but also
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in an individual ways. In our
own time, you could think about it
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like this. We don't just pray
at Church together, but we also pray
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at home by ourselves. And in
any of these situations, whether corporately together
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or at home by ourselves, when
there are bad things that happen, Plomon
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asks that God would bring good things
about. So in the first paragraph he
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says that when there is a sin
that happens, he asked that God would
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bring justice. In the next paragraph
he asks that when there is a defeat,
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that God would bring victory, and
then, paragraph after that, he
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asks that when there's no rain,
God would bring rain. In the paragraph
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after that he says when there is
famine, blight, enemies, anything,
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if there's anything that a person needs, any sorrow in his own heart,
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when his hands stretch out to you, that the your house, this House,
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then here from heaven, your dwelling
place, and forgive and render that
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word forgive is important and we've seen
it appear several times and nearly every paragraph
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this comes up, and here we
are reminded that these bad things that are
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happening are not just bad things that
happen, but there are the curses of
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the Lord. They are connected with
the sins. So, in other words,
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when a person sins, these bad
things happen and he and he's asking
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that when they happen, as the
God has promised, they will happen.
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God, will you please, when
people repent and turn from their sins,
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forgive them. This includes not only
Israel, but in the next paragraph he
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mentions foreigners, a wonderful promise anticipating
the coming in of the gentiles. Solomon
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asks that even when a foreigner who
is not of your people, Israel,
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who is not belong to the Covenant, who does not belong to the promises,
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when he comes from a far country, for the sake of God or
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is he puts it your great name, in your mighty hand and your outstretched
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arm, give him what he asks, forgive his sins. And he asks
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it and and and and, and
that you would bless bless him. Essentially,
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he's asking that you would would that, as a foreigner, praise,
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he would no longer be a foreigner
but come to enjoy the blessings of God
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and his people. In the paragraph
after that, he again mentions war and
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victory and then, finally, in
the last one, sin and exile.
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When these things happen, he asks
again for forgiveness and return. Sin,
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defeat, reign, famine, blight, enemies, foreigners, worse, thin,
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all resulting in good things justice,
victory, reign responding and forgiveness belonging
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to the people of God. Victory, forgiveness return. What do we learn
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from all of this? Well,
in some ways, Solomon's situation was unique.
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As I say, these are curses
for a covenant that we no longer
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are under, but certainly we do
experience, as Christians, God's displeasure for
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us when we sin, and this
teaches us not merely to endure the things
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that we suffer as a result of
our sins, but to seek God,
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to turn from our sins, not
merely to endure them, but to repent
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of them. We are to go
to God, recognizing our sin and our
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weakness, and that is why we
sure we should call to him and seek
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him out. This is a good
reminder that assalomon praise, he doesn't pray
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to God, who is his equal. Solomon doesn't go to God and sort
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of work out a deal with him. Solomon goes to God as one who
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is holy and who is just,
who brings about the curses as well as
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the blessings who could, but who
also gives forgiveness to those who ask.
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So the simple truth is this.
When we sin, God says that we
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can repent of our sins and be
forgiven. It's really that simple. But
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I realized that in saying this,
some of you will feel that this is
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not enough, because you know,
and I know how easily our commitment to
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this truth gets washed away. We
stand here or sit here now and think,
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yes, God forgives our sins.
Yes, he says that when we
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go to him and repentance and ask
for mercy, that he will forgive us.
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But then when we sin, when
doubts creep in, when the devil
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whispers in our ears, we find
that sometimes the foundation that we've built on
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is but s and and so,
from Solomon's prayer I want to consider three
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reasons why, why we can seek
the Lord in this way, three reasons
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Solomon gives why we can repent and
trust him for this, that we might
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have a more sure foundation. Well, the first one is that Solomon asks
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boldly for forgiveness and repentance, and
we should too, because of his faith
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in God's Covenant Of Grace, Solomon
is trusting not his own imaginations. He's
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not merely wish wishfully hoping that God
will forgive his sins, but he's standing
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on something strong as he asks,
and that's God's covenant. So, for
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example, in verse Seventeen of this
chapter, which I didn't read but read
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last time, Solomon says now,
therefore, oh Lord, God of Israel,
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let your word be confirmed, which
you have spoken to your servant,
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David. This comes up again in
verse forty two, the last verse of
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this chapter. Oh Lord God,
Oh Jehovah, God, do not turn
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away the face of or anointed one. Remember your steadfast love for David,
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your servant. You See, what
Solomon is trusting him is not his own
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ability to repent, but in God's
promise to forgive. Solomon's not saying,
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oh Lord, when you see this
good thing in me, this spiritual thing
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I'm doing, be pleased with it
and save me. He's saying, act
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according to the promises you've made.
I'm repenting because you've promised things to us.
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Freedom from enemies, the blessings of
the earth, the forgiveness of sins.
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These are things that God promised Abraham
and then again promised David, and
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Solomon is relying on them, and
and we should too. When we ask
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for God to forgive us our sins, we ask not because we think it
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just might work. But we ask
because God has promised to forgive us our
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sins, to give us good things, to bless us with wonderful things,
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both in this life and, even
more importantly, in the next. A
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second thing to note is that when
we pray these things and God uses our
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prayers to accomplish his will. So
notice, for example, in Verse Thirty
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One of this chapter. In Verse
Thirty One, this is the paragraph about
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forgiving. He says, please forgive, that they may fear you and walk
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in your ways all the days,
that you live in the land, or
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that they live in the land that
you gave to our fathers. You see,
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again, this is depending on God's
Covenant Promise. There's this goal that
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the people live in the land,
that they enjoy it, that they are
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blessed by it, that they are
walking in the ways of the Lord.
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That's what Psalomon wants, and he
wants that because that's what God wants,
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and God uses our prayers of repentance
to get us to that end. It's
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the mechanism, so to speak,
or one of them anyways, that God
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uses to accomplish his will. Here's
another one in in verse thirty three.
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It's the passage about the foreigner,
he says when he ain't, when he
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comes from a far country and seeks
you, hear from Your Heaven, here,
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from Heaven, your dwelling place,
and do according to all for which
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the foreigner calls you, in order
that, see, here's the goal,
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in order that all the peoples of
the Earth May know your name and fear
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you and do as as do your
people Israel, that they may know that
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this House that I have built is
called by your name. You see what
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he's saying? You saying by the
prayers that this foreigner gives and the prayers
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that God answers, something else is
accomplished. Not only is these foreigner blessed,
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this non Israelite, but something of
God's name is spread. You often
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hear me pray that God would do
things for our good and for his glory.
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This is the pattern that we see
here. This foreigner is praying for
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good things, at least pass at
least in part for himself. But in
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that Solomon recognizes that as the Lord
answers those prayers, he works through it
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and God's glory spreads. So you
see what I'm saying. God uses our
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prayers to glorify himself, to do
his will to spread his word. By
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faith we receive the blessings that are
promised in the covenant of Grace, but
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also by these prayers of faith,
God works out the Covenant of Grace in
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history. This is an amazing thing. God hears our prayers and he uses
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them to work according to his will. The last reason we ought to pray
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and and repent in these ways is, first was because of his covenant of
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Grace and his promises to forgive and
to bless. Secondly, because his prayers
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accomplish his our prayers and his answering
of them God uses to accomplish his will
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and third because God approves of and
agrees with Solomon's prayer. So if we
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have any doubt that there is goodness
in here or there at this is a
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model to follow. We need not
because, as he says in verse set,
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in Chapter Seven, verse one,
as soon as Solomon finished his prayer,
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fire came down from heaven and consumed
the burnt offering and the sacrifices,
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and the glory of Jehovah filled the
Temple and the priests could not enter the
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House of Jehovah Because the glory of
Jehovah Filled Jehovah's House. When all the
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people of Israel saw the fire come
down and the glory of Jehovah on the
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Temple, they bow down with their
faces to the ground on the pavement and
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worshiped and give thanks to Jehovah,
saying for he is good, for his
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steadfast love endures forever. And then
in verse twelve of this chapter, Chapter
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Seven, we read that God appears
to Solemnon at night and says to him
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I have heard your prayer and have
chosen this place for myself as a house
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of sacrifice. I'm not going to
read all of the rest of this,
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but let me read just one verse
and you'll see what's coming. In the
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rest of them, God says,
when I shut up to heaven so that
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there is no rain, or command
the locust to devour the land, or
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send pestilence among my people, if
my people who are called by a name,
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and he goes on listing all the
things. That's all'man prayed for and
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goes on to say, he concludes, then I will hear from Heaven and
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forgive their sin and heal their land. This amazing, the things that Solomon
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Prays for for the Nation of Israel. God says he will answer them when
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his people turn and repent. This
is an amazing promise and it should encourage
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us in our prayers of repentance that
when we turn and repent to God,
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he hears us and he answers our
prayers. Now, Solomon, well,
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I do need to read one more
verse at the end here in Chapter Seven,
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God says to him in verse Seventeen. And as for you, if
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you will walk before me as David
Your father walked, doing according to all
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that I have command you you and
keeping my statutes in my rules, then
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I will establish your throne, as
I have covenanted with David Your father,
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saying you shall not lack a man
to rule Israel. Verse Nineteen. But
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if you turn aside and forsake my
statutes, in my commandments that I have
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set before you, and go and
serve other Gods and worship them, then
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I will pluck you up from my
land that I have given you and this
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House that I have constructed for my
name, I will cast out of my
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sight and I will make it a
proverb and a by word among all the
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people's. And he goes on along
those similar thoughts. Now this is important
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to know, because notice what God
is saying. There is a condition to
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his promises. He says, I
will bless you, Solomon, I will
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answer your prayers for forgiveness if,
Solomon, you obey as I've called you
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to do. If you don't,
however, the all the things that you
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fear will indeed come to pass.
And I love how God says here and
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this House that I have constructed for
my name, I will cast out of
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my sight. You See, says
to Solomon, this isn't your house,
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you did not build this. This
is my work and I will bring it
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to an end now. The reason
this is important to note is that,
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because you might have an objection at
this point, the word clearly teaches that
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God's response to these prayers depends very
much on the king's on Solomon and those
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who come after him, those who
act as David Sun. Will they keep
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the Covenant? Will they walk in
the ways of the Lorder? Will they
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not? And the truth is they
did not. Solomon did fail, even
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if he was perfect, which he
wasn't. He didn't live forever. Solomon's
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own prayer anticipates future time, such
as the exile and the return. So
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my question to you is, how
can we pray these same prayers? How
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can what I've been saying to you
all along be true? If God promises
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to forgive but are but forgiveness is
based on the obedience of the king,
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well then what hope do we have? Because of source? Of course,
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Solomon Sinned and Solomon died and we
have no Solomon today. But it is
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right there at that last clause that
this objection that I'm bringing forward goes wrong.
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True enough about Solomon that he wasn't
perfect, true enough that he died,
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but he does live. He does
live, of course, by believing
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and trusting in the promises of God
as one of God's own sons. But
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he also lives in the way that
he foreshadowed and typified another son of David,
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Jesus of Nazareth. God would send
and did send another king who,
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unlike Solomon, never sinned and fulfilled
the terms of the divid a covenant perfectly
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for himself and for all who are
under him. Jesus, like Solomon,
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died, but his body rose from
the dead by the power of the spirit,
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vindicating that the life he lived he
lived perfectly, and the evil death
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that he was dealt was overcome,
he rose again and he continues to live
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and to reign as our king,
as we've pointed out various times throughout this
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book and will continue to reflect on
and meditate on, we are not waiting
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for another king, we're not waiting
for another Solomon. We're not waiting and
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hoping that some president of our country
will finally rise up into Solomon's place.
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We have our king. We have
the one that we need, the one
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who has obeyed God, the one
who lives in the resurrection life because of
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his obedience and is conquering over death. What does this mean? This means
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that we can pray the prayers of
Solomon. We can pray and ask that,
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when we turn from our sin,
that we can have forgiveness, because
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our hope for forgiveness rests not on
a man, but on the God man,
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on Jesus. It means that Jesus
fulfilled the covenant that God God made
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with David, that Jesus made with
David. It means that we, who
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belong to him, therefore, can
know that God hears our prayers, because
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he hears Jesus's prayers, he hears
the prayers of the Holy Spirit living and
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dwelling with on us. Once the
spirit of God dwelled within the Temple,
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and the New Testament tells us that
now we are that Temple God. Here's
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our prayers, as those who belong
under the belong to Christ. It means
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not only that God hears us,
but we no longer have to fear the
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curse. These curses that were promised
on the land of Israel do no longer
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to apply to us, and the
judgment that they anticipated the much greater and
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more dreadful thing of the Great Judgment
Day and Hell itself. We don't fear
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that either, because Jesus not only
pours out all his blessings, but he
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also took on the curse. This
means that as we live our lives under
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King Jesus, we live lives of
freedom, having the curse erased and paid
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for, having the blessings of God
poured out on us and promised to come
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to the current their complete consummation when
the Lord returns. It means that we
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can live a life of repentance and
praise to God, God, and do
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so in a holy and wonderful joy. And then, when we fall into
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our old sins and our evil habits
and the craven desires of our hearts.
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Of course we will expect that God
will, in one way or another,
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discipline us. Of course he does. He he loves us. But when
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that happens, we remember this,
that the God, that God who disciplines,
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is not a god who is cursing. All of our curses are taken
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away in Jesus, but he disciplines
us so that we might draw near to
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him and so that we might know
the forgiveness of our sins and life and
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greater life in him. I want
to conclude by reading to you a little
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bit from the James's letter. Here
James says about our prayers. You do
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not have because you do not ask. This is often true, isn't it,
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of our sins, of forgiveness and
other things. But here's the promise
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that I want to leave you with. He says in Verse Five. Or
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do you suppose it is no purpose
that? The scripture says he yearns jealously
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over the spirit that he is made
to dwell in us, but he gives
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us grace, more grace, or
he gives more grace. Therefore, it
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says God opposes the proud but gives
grace to the humble. Submit yourselves,
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therefore, to God. Resist the
devil and he will flee from you.
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Draw near to God and he will
draw near to you. Cleanse your hands,
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you sinners, and purify your hearts. You double minded. Be wretched
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and mourn and weep. Let your
laughter be turned into mourning and your joy
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into gloom. Humble yourselves before the
Lord and he will exalt you. This
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is the promise that we read in
James and it's the promise of Solomon's prayer.
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When we turn to the Lord and
Repentance and we seek forgiveness of our
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sins, he promises US forgiveness and
the life and joy and peace and all
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the rest that comes from knowing and
being at peace with God. It is
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my prayer that when you feel the
weight of your sins, that you would
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not merely endure that feeling, but
that you would go to God, that
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you would repent of your sins with
confidence in what King Jesus has done and
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know that you are forgiven. Draw
near to him and he will draw near
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to you. Let us pray
