Brother Gary Thursday Evening 9/12/13

Brother Gary Thursday Evening 9/12/13

Solomon was chosen of God for the work of building the temple.  His father, David, could not build it but helped him prepare.  He started out with a wonderful expression to God. 

I am not a Solomon.  Yet to everyone here that is saved and sanctified, Jesus taught: “You have not chosen me but I have chosen you.”  We are a chosen generation and a royal priesthood.

This scripture was written when things were in pretty good shape in Solomon’s life.  I would like to know where Solomon’s association with Pharaoh’s daughter came in, but this I know, Solomon started out well with God. 

Everyone of here has started out well with God and is now serving God because we want to serve God.  What we can gain from this little lesson tonight we want to gain.

2Ch 7:12  And the LORD appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for an house of sacrifice.

The temple had been finished and they were worshipping and offering sacrifice to God.  God appeared to Solomon in this thought:

2Ch 7:13  If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people;

2Ch 7:14  If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

My thought is this: when we come to Christ and get saved, we begin a journey of measuring and of being perfected.  We don’t get saved and have it all together.  We get saved to be perfected and to perfect holiness.  We get saved to walk with God and have the carnal man removed and get sanctified.  Even after we are saved and sanctified there is a washing that takes place.

Every one of us comes from different parents.  We all have a different past: our own and that of our families.  We come from different walks.  Sometimes we are left scarred.  We don’t want to talk about our parents and so on, but it means that we didn’t have a perfect life.  Sometimes it left us with mind battles and feelings of no self worth and all that. 

After we get saved, God begins a work to make of us into what He wants us to be. 

Solomon made moves that caused His heart to be turned away from God.  There are a lot of things that transpire in our lives and we respond to them.  We look back sometimes in retrospect and realize that we didn’t have the right attitude about that.  We let some things work that didn’t have a beneficial effect on our life.

There is a call that comes out to my soul, “If I will humble myself and pray…”  If I humble myself, not if you humble yourself, and if I seek the face of God…

I was telling my wife probably this last week, our times have brought us to a place in time where sometimes I feel like we need a band of saints praying earnestly for children, for those that are in school, and for the afflicted, the needs are so great. 

Sometimes I feel when I look at the prayer requests that the needs are overwhelming, can I do justice to carrying everything from an abused child to heartbreaking situations in prayer, can I do justice to these? 

I’ve thought of this as I worked on it a week ago, “turn from their wicked ways.”

If we have allowed anything in our life because of our time, because of whatever where we lack vision, maturity, training, and it is displeasing to God, my thought is, “God show me.”  There is not anything that we wouldn’t gladly turn away from.

We have this marvelous promise, “Then will I hear from heaven and heal.”

2Ch 7:15  Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place.

2Ch 7:16  For now have I chosen and sanctified this house, that my name may be there for ever: and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.

How God’s heart must be grieved at where places are now that had once been church of God with the right attitude, right spirit, and right doctrine.  Unfortunately but true those places become a place of bondage and a place of beating of sheep.  It is so sad. 

God ordained that His body be one and His eyes be open and ears attendant to what goes on in that place.  God’s will is that for everyplace that names the name of Christ His eyes be always there and every time they call, He is always there.  We cannot change other places but we can be church of God in Paradise. 

If we will humble ourselves, pray, and seek the face of God, then we are like, “Show me God and anything that you deal with I will get rid of.  Take it; there is nothing that I am holding on to.”

It is awesome for God’s heart to be with us, for Him to feel toward us with a tender heart and a heart of compassion, for Him to share our joys and to share our challenges.

2Ch 7:17  And as for thee, if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, and do according to all that I have commanded thee, and shalt observe my statutes and my judgments;

2Ch 7:18  Then will I stablish the throne of thy kingdom, according as I have covenanted with David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man to be ruler in Israel.

Solomon was relatively young when God spoke this to him.  He lived maybe thirty years after this. 

2Ch 7:19  But if ye turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them;

2Ch 7:20  Then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for my name, will I cast out of my sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among all nations.

2Ch 7:21  And this house, which is high, shall be an astonishment to every one that passeth by it; so that he shall say, Why hath the LORD done thus unto this land, and unto this house?

2Ch 7:22  And it shall be answered, Because they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath he brought all this evil upon them.

Dear church, get a grip on God and don’t get a grip on any other gods.