May Your eyes be open to the pleas of Your servant and of Your people Israel, and may You listen to them whenever they call to You. Sermons
I. WHEN MEN MAKE VOWS AND PROMISES. Compare ver. 31 with the ordinances of Moses (Exodus 22:7-9). The oath was taken in the presence of God, because the thought of Him as the Searcher of hearts would induce serious consideration and careful exactitude, and because He was tacitly invited by His providence to confirm or to punish the spoken word. Show how the principle, right in itself, became abused and vitiated, so that Christ condemned the practices of His day (Matthew 5:33-37). Learn from the ancient practice (1) that our utterances should be made as by men conscious of the nearness of the God of truth. Apply this to the immoralities of some business transactions, to the prevalence of slander in society, etc. (2) That our resolutions should be formed in a spirit of prayer. How vain the pledge and promise of amendment, unless there be added to the human resolve the help of God's providence in circumstances, and the grace of His Spirit in the heart! Give examples of each. II. WHEN MEN ARE INJURED OR DEFEATED BY THEIR ADVERSARIES. "When thy people Israel be smitten down before the enemy" (ver. 33). National defeat in war should lead to self examination on the part of those smitten. Too often the investigation is applied only to material resources: incompetent officials are dismissed, weakened regiments are strengthened, new alliances are formed, etc. The mischief may lie deeper. Sometimes God is calling the people not to redeem national honour, but to seek national righteousness. The teaching of the verse may be applied figuratively to defeats suffered by Christian controversialists or by philanthropic workers, etc. Every check in onward progress is a summons to thought and prayer. "In the day of adversity consider." Illustrate by examples.in Scripture, e.g., by the defeat of Israel at Ai, and its issues. III. WHEN MEN ARE TREMBLING UNDER NATURAL CALAMITIES. Reference is made in ver. 35 to the withholding of rain; in ver. 37 to "famine, pestilence, blasting, mildew, locust, and caterpillar." Such troubles were sent in vain to bring the Egyptians to repentance. Compare those plagues with Elijah's message to Ahab, and with the threats of other prophets. Such statements as Deuteronomy 11:17 enshrine an abiding truth. In the long run the violation of God's laws do bring disasters of the very kind specified here. If the law of industry be violated, the harvests fail; if the law of mutual dependence be ignored by nations, commerce is crippled, and impoverishment comes; if the laws against self indulgence, pride, ambition, etc., be defied, the spendthrift has the result in poverty, the proud nation in the miseries of war, etc. Even the disasters which are accounted "natural phenomena," then, should lead the wise hearted to prayer, the sinful to penitence; and God will hear in heaven His dwelling place, and answer and forgive. Show how, during the ministry of our Lord, the cripples, the blind, the diseased came to Him. Their misery made them feel their need of what He alone could give, and many of them became conscious of their spiritual wants from considering first the want that was physical. As they were thus led, so the Church has been which in the Old Testament was oppressed most by the earthly wants, and in the New by the spiritual. Those in the far country learn, by beginning to "be in want," that God is calling them to arise and return to Him. IV. WHEN MEN ARE CONSCIOUS OF THEIR SIN. All through this prayer reference is made to sin and to the consequent necessity for pardon (vers. 38, 46-50). Point out the climax in ver. 47: (1) "We have sinned" - have not kept in the ways of God - sin in its negative aspect; (2) "have done perversely" - acts of perversity; (3) "have committed wickedness" - the overwhelming passion which drives into corruption. The necessity of humble confession as an integral part of prayer from the lips of fallen man can readily be shown from Scripture. Examples of conscience of sin impelling to prayer seen in David (Psalm 51.), the publican (Luke 18:18). "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). V. WHEN MEN ARE GOING FORTH TO CONFLICT IN GOD'S NAME. "If thy people shall go out to battle against their enemy whithersoever thou shalt send them," etc. (ver. 44). We must not forget that Israel was a theocracy. David, for example, spoke of his foes as being God's foes. So had it been with Moses, Joshua, etc. The consciousness of that gives almost superhuman power. "Man, being linked with Omnipotency, is a kind of omnipotent creature," says Bacon. Even when the belief that one is on God's side is false, the belief itself is an inspiration. Examples from history of such belief well or ill founded - Joan of Are, the Puritans, etc. In actual war no nation can fairly put up this prayer unless the cause of war is that of which we can say, "whithersoever thou shalt send." No mistake need exist in reference to foes whom Christ came to destRomans The promise, "Lo! I am with you," was the inspiration of the apostles as they confronted false philosophies, crass ignorance, brutal customs, degrading superstitions. Hence, if they were going forth to battle with such evils, the prayers of the Church went up on their behalf. Men were set apart for their Christian mission by prayer (give examples), and in their work they often turned to their intercessors, saying, "Brethren, pray for us!" Feeling our insufficiency to overcome the adversaries of the gospel, let us, like the apostles, "continue in prayer and supplication" till we are "endued with power from on high." - A.R.
When Thy people Israel be smitten down before the enemy. I. THE CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY. When any one desires to understand what is meant by a nation, he had better look unto God's people Israel first of all, for they fulfilled the two great conditions of national unity. The first is faith in God, and no nation has ever risen to greatness, and no nation, having arisen, has ever maintained its greatness except so far as it believed in — and publicly as a nation, and privately by individuals — acknowledged Almighty God. There is this analogy between the individual and the nation, that an individual is not able to say "I," with any intelligence of what "I" means, except in God; and an individual is not able to say "I will," with any force in the will, except in God. It is in the Unseen and Eternal that we realise ourselves. The other condition of national unity with Israel was vocation. Therefore the prophets were perpetually telling the people that their fathers had been called and blessed not for their own sake — and there is no man ever blessed for his own sake, but for the sake of the man that is next him — that their fathers had not been called and blessed for their own sake, but for the sake of the world. They were the receptors of a Revelation, and received the touch of truth to pass it down from hand to hand, and every man to blow it brighter as it went from patriarch to prophet, from prophet to psalmist, from psalmist to martyr, till the day came when the nation could be sent out, each man a torch-bearer, unto the ends of the earth, carrying the light of eternal truth.II. A MESSAGE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. What was the message they were to carry to the world? The message they were to carry to the world was righteousness. As the Greek was raised up of God to give us the sense of beauty, so was the Jew raised up to give us what is far better than beauty, the sense of righteousness; and to write the ten words of Moses upon the conscience of the individual and the conscience of the nation. Comes then the question: Is there any nation to-day that has, as it were, succeeded to a great and world-wide mission, and a mission of the same practical and ethical nature as that which God gave to His people Israel? Is there any nation that has been secluded in its island home, and guarded round from other people so that the invader could not touch it; is there any nation that within its own home, being men of mixed blood, has gradually been welded together by common human sympathy and common faith in God; is there any nation that has gradually been led into a fuller sense of the truth of God; into political, and religious, and social liberty; is there any nation whose ordered and beneficent freedom is the admiration of every people, of its enemies and friends alike? Finally, is there any nation whose members have gone unto the ends of the earth, and wherever they have gone have been able to teach, to govern, to give justice unto the nations placed under their charge? There is only one nation of whom these things can be said; only one nation with whose history you can draw out this analogy to Israel, and that is the English people. Ought we not to ask ourselves whether as a nation — and having had this great favour of the Eternal — whether, as a nation we have borne ourselves like the servant of God? In one — in perhaps the most tender and beautiful passage in all the Old Testament, Isaiah 53. — there is a description of God s servant, which is supposed by some to be the Messiah, by some to be God's people Israel; but the mark of Him is not only that He is the means of great blessing to the world, but His humility, His tenderness, His sympathy, His lowliness. Have we been, as a nation, courteous to foreign nations, as we go by individuals through their midst? Have we, in our Literature and in our tress, always done justice to foreign peoples, and never blown our trumpet, our brazen trumpet, loudly in their faces? Is our character such — the character which we have earned through centuries such — that a foreigner will at once appreciate the goodness that is in us? III. THE SIN OF MATERIALISM. The other sin which we always realise in a national crisis is the sin of Materialism, which also greatly beset Israel. While Israel was a handful of farmers, Israel was more or less spiritual. When Israel became rich and increased in goods, you have only to read the prophets to note how the race for wealth entered, and the power of the rich and the suffering of the poor made an unhappy and miserable nation. We have grown rich, and I am told — though you know better about these things than I do — that we were never richer than at the present day. Rich in goods? I pray you to define goods; and when we define goods, how are they defined? I think it is the money in the savings bank, which is very good so far as it represents thrift and intelligence; and the railways which we have made, which represent enterprise and the development of the country; these things and many other things. But these in themselves. are not the goods of a nation. No, not exports and imports, and population and money — these are not the goods of a nation. The goods of a nation are its intelligence; the goods of a nation are its integrity; the goods of a nation are its charity; the goods of a nation are its high and just spirit before God. Wherefore be not too lifted up, but let us remember this, that if our nation ever decay, it will not be from any power from without, or any unfaithfulness on the part of our God. It will be because some men have too much money, and some other people-have too little; and the west end of a city is one place, and the east end is another, and the west and the east they come not together. (J. Watson, D. D.) People David, Israelites, Levites, SolomonPlaces Brook of Egypt, Egypt, Holy Place, Horeb, Jerusalem, Lebo-hamath, Most Holy Place, ZionTopics Cry, Ear, Giving, Grace, Hearing, Hearken, Listen, Open, Plea, Prayer, Servant, Servant's, Supplication, Supplications, Whenever, WhensoeverOutline 1. The feast of the temple12. Solomon's blessing 22. Solomon's prayer 54. Solomon's blessing 62. His sacrifice of peace offerings Dictionary of Bible Themes 1 Kings 8:46-52Library 'The Matter of a Day in Its Day''At all times, as the matter shall require.'--1 KINGS viii. 59. I have ventured to diverge from my usual custom, and take this fragment of a text because, in the forcible language of the original, it carries some very important lessons. The margin of our Bible gives the literal reading of the Hebrew; the sense, but not the vigorous idiom, of which is conveyed in the paraphrase in our version. 'At all times, as the matter shall require,' is, literally, 'the thing of a day in its day'; and that is … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture The King 'Blessing' his People Blighted Blossoms The Next Words Are, which Art in Heaven. ... In the Dungeon of Giant Discourager Whether the Old Law Enjoined Fitting Precepts Concerning Rulers? Sanctification. The New Temple and Its Worship The Law Given, not to Retain a People for Itself, but to Keep Alive the Hope of Salvation in Christ Until his Advent. "If we Confess Our Sins, He is Faithful and Just to Forgive us Our Sins, and to Cleanse us from all Unrighteousness. If we Say We Entire Sanctification The Whole Heart The Gospel of John Scriptural Types. Its Meaning The Promises of the Law and the Gospel Reconciled. The Fact of the Redeemer's Return had a Spectacular Setting Forth on the Mount of Transfiguration. How to Make Use of Christ for Taking the Guilt of Our Daily Out-Breakings Away. The Doctrine of God Every Thing Proceeding from the Corrupt Nature of Man Damnable. The Work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate, The Song of Solomon. The Fact of the Redeemer's Return was Typified in the Lives of Joseph and Solomon. Links 1 Kings 8:52 NIV1 Kings 8:52 NLT 1 Kings 8:52 ESV 1 Kings 8:52 NASB 1 Kings 8:52 KJV 1 Kings 8:52 Bible Apps 1 Kings 8:52 Parallel 1 Kings 8:52 Biblia Paralela 1 Kings 8:52 Chinese Bible 1 Kings 8:52 French Bible 1 Kings 8:52 German Bible 1 Kings 8:52 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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