◄ 2 Chronicles 6:32 ►
And as for the foreigner who is not of Your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of Your great name and Your mighty hand and outstretched arm--when he comes and prays toward this temple,
Sermons
The Sevenfold IllustrationT. Whitelaw 2 Chronicles 6:22-39
God and the NationW. Clarkson 2 Chronicles 6:24-28, 34, 35














Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
God And The Individual Soul
2 Chronicles 6:29-31
W. Clarkson
Not only during the time of national calamity (ver. 28), though especially then, do families and individual men find themselves in sore need of Divine succour. There is never any considerable congregation which does not include at least a few hearts that come up in hope of comfort and relief from Heaven.

I. THE BURDEN WHICH IS BORNE BY EACH HUMAN HEART. With our complex nature, and our many human relationships, we lie open to many ills and sorrows. These may be:

1. Bodily; pain or weakness, or threatened serious disease.

2. Temporal; some difficulty or danger connected with "our circumstances."

3. Sympathetic; some trouble of heart we are suffering by reason of our strong attachment to others who suffer and are in distress.

4. Spiritual; heart-ache, disappointment, compunction, doubt, anxious inquiry after God. "Every one knows his own sore and his own grief."

II. THE APPEAL OF THE SOUL TO THE SUPREME. Trouble does lead men to the God of their life, to the Father of their spirit. "Men say, 'God be pitiful,' who ne'er said, 'God be praised.'" We cannot supply our own need; we find our own "insufficiency for ourselves;" we must look beyond ourselves, and in what direction? Man often fails us.

1. We cannot speak to him, either because we cannot get his ear, or because we do not care to divulge our secret grief to any human heart whatsoever.

2. Or we have tried to secure human sympathy, and have failed; men are too much occupied with their own affairs and their own troubles to make much room in their hearts for ours.

3. Or we cannot discover the human hand that will help us; those that pity cannot serve us, cannot save us. We must have recourse to God. And we bring our grief, our sore, to him.

1. We are sure that he is accessible. He invites our approach; he says, "Call upon me in the time of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me."

2. We are sure of his attention. He is our Father, who pities us with parental kindness (Psalm 103:13); he is our Saviour, who has trodden the path of struggle and of sorrow before us, on whose tender sympathy we may confidently count (Hebrews 2:18; Hebrews 4:15, 16; Hebrews 5:2).

3. We may depend on his power. He is able to save, to rescue, to restore, to renew.

III. THE DIVINE RESPONSE.

1. It is a question of our spiritual integrity. God answers "according to all our ways;" that is, according to our integrity. We must have the spirit of obedience in us. We may not look for a response if we are "regarding iniquity in our heart;" but, on the other hand, if we are seriously bent on serving the Lord, if "our heart condemn us not," if it acquit us of all insincerity and double-mindedness, "then have we confidence toward God; and whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments" (1 John 3:21, 22). We may not, we are not able to keep all his precepts in all particulars; but the spirit of filial obedience, the desire to do what is "pleasing in his sight," is dwelling within us and inspiring us, and we are, therefore, of those whose prayer he hears. He forgives our shortcoming ("hear... and forgive"), and he "renders according to our ways."

2. It is a question of Divine knowledge. Who shall tell that this spirit of submission and obedience is within us? Only One can; it is he who "only knows the hearts of the children of men." He looks beneath our words and actions, and sees the motives and the purposes of our hearts.

3. It is a question of our character and the Divine intention. And God's design is so to hear and heed our prayers, so to grant or to withhold the desires of our heart, that we shall "fear God and walk in his ways," shall be "partakers of his holiness." - C.

Biblical Illustrator
When the heaven is shut up, and there is no rain.
2 Chronicles 6:26-31
Perils to agriculture
J. Wolfendale.
I. A REBUKE TO RATIONALISM IN NATURAL EVILS. All meteorological phenomena are under God's control. In all afflictive events God speaks to cities and nations.

II. A MORAL DESIGN IN THE INFLICTION OF NATURAL EVILS.

1. To requite justice.

2. To lead to God.

III. A PLACE FOR PRAYER IN THE REMOVING NATURAL EVILS. This denied by many. Prayer may be necessary for man's highest culture. We do not classify with powers in physical nature. It is not a natural but a moral power. The ordination of God leaves room for prayer. Prayer may be one of the laws of the universe as certain in its sphere as the laws of heat or of gravitation in their peculiar realms. Neither history, Scripture, nor experience forbid us to pray in times of national distress.

(J. Wolfendale.)

Pardon and punishment
Philip W. Darnton, B.A.
(2 Chronicles 6:27, with 2 Samuel 7:14 and 1 Corinthians 11:32): — I take these passages in a group because they all set forth a similar view of a great subject. They all take a natural and what we may can an untechnical view of the subject of Divine forgiveness. The prophet Nathan and Solomon and the apostle Paul all saw that sin produced its natural consequences of pain and penalty in good men and bad men alike, and though all believed in the reality and triumph of mercy, and were quite sure of God's readiness to forgive, yet they perceived that Divine forgiveness did not remove those consequences, at least in this life. Pardon does not mean immunity from punishment.

I. WHAT IS PUNISHMENT?

1. "Behold," says the apostle Paul, "the goodness and severity of God." That there is an element of righteous indignation in God the whole frame of Nature testifies; the Scriptures frequently declare; and our own moral sense demands that it should be so. We cannot conceive of a perfect Being without the capacity of such indignation. The very methods of the Divine rule absolutely involve pain. But there are things in the world more to be dreaded than pain. There are evils so great — so great in themselves — that it is worth while enduring all the pain we can conceive in order to get rid of them. Righteousness is the one ruling principle of all life. In the interests of righteousness the universe is governed. Character, now and always, owes all its moral worth to the acknowledgment of the supreme majesty of the law of righteousness.

2. Now perhaps we can understand something of the meaning of punishment. It is —(1) The expression of the indignation of a perfectly holy God. It is not an act of vengeance, nor anger which is excited by the thwarting of the Divine will. To God there is nothing so dear as justice, truth, love; and when men, from selfish love of pleasure, or equally selfish wilfulness, violate these, and become cruel, unjust, false, the holy indignation of the holiest of all beings springs forth in punishment, and God becomes a "consuming fire."(2) Punishment is the very guardian of life. If a man takes poison, or if he thrusts his hand into the fire, he suffers pain. Pain is not the evil to be feared, but the effect of the act upon the whole frame. The poison saps the life — the pain is the mere symptom of the fact. The fire is destroying the tissues of the body — the pain is the evidence of it. Pain is like the beacon which warns the mariner of the dangerous reef or the sunken rock.(3) Punishment and pain are the means of healing. To any one ignorant of medical science, a surgeon performing an operation would seem cruel and unfeeling. But he cuts down into the living flesh with his keen knife and inflicts the sharpest pain because he knows that in no other way can the life be saved. In the hands of a benevolent God suffering is surgical.

II. WHEN WE HAVE SOUGHT PARDON AND FOUND MERCY WE MAY STILL HAVE TO SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES OF PAST SIN. Pardon consists of two parts —

1. The cessation of resentment.

2. The removal of consequences. These two parts are not always united in time. I may cease from anger, cease to feel resentment against my erring, disobedient child when he repents, and yet may allow him to suffer the natural consequences of his wrong doing. My love may be so deep and tender that I suffer in his suffering, and even more poignantly than he, but I let it go on. And God does so. Our duty is to bow submissively, to recognise Divine love, and to endure patiently the chastisement that seeks to cure us of our faults.

(Philip W. Darnton, B.A.)

People
David, Solomon
Places
Egypt, Holy Place, Jerusalem
Topics
Afar, Arm, Belong, Distant, Foreigner, Glory, Likewise, Mighty, Moreover, Name's, Outstretched, Out-stretched, Prayed, Prayer, Prays, Sake, Strange, Stranger, Stretched, Stretched-out, Strong, Temple, Towards, Turning
Outline
1. Solomon, having blessed the people, blessed God
12. Solomon's prayer in the consecration of the temple, upon the bronze platform.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
2 Chronicles 6:32

     1060   God, greatness of
     1265   hand of God
     5126   arm

2 Chronicles 6:32-33

     7949   mission, of Israel
     8636   asking

Library
December the Eighth Judged by Our Aspirations
"Thou didst well, it was in thine heart." --2 CHRONICLES vi. 1-15. And this was a purpose which the man was not permitted to realize. It was a temple built in the substance of dreams, but never established in wood and stone. And God took the shadowy structure and esteemed it as a perfected pile. The sacred intention was regarded as a finished work. The will to build a temple was regarded as a temple built. And hence I discern the preciousness of all hallowed purpose and desire, even though it …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

"If So be that the Spirit of God Dwell in You. Now if any Man have not the Spirit of Christ, He is None of His. "
Rom. viii. 9.--"If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." "But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth?" 2 Chron. vi. 18. It was the wonder of one of the wisest of men, and indeed, considering his infinite highness above the height of heavens, his immense and incomprehensible greatness, that the heaven of heavens cannot contain him, and then the baseness, emptiness, and worthlessness of man, it may be a wonder to the …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Eleventh Lesson. Believe that Ye have Received;'
Believe that ye have received;' Or, The Faith that Takes. Therefore I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them.'--Mark xi. 24 WHAT a promise! so large, so Divine, that our little hearts cannot take it in, and in every possible way seek to limit it to what we think safe or probable; instead of allowing it, in its quickening power and energy, just as He gave it, to enter in, and to enlarge our hearts to the measure of what …
Andrew Murray—With Christ in the School of Prayer

Sanctification.
VI. Objections answered. I will consider those passages of scripture which are by some supposed to contradict the doctrine we have been considering. 1 Kings viii. 46: "If they sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near," etc. On this passage, I remark:-- 1. That this sentiment in nearly the same language, is repeated in 2 Chron. vi. 26, and in Eccl. …
Charles Grandison Finney—Systematic Theology

Solomon's Temple Spiritualized
or, Gospel Light Fetched out of the Temple at Jerusalem, to Let us More Easily into the Glory of New Testament Truths. 'Thou son of man, shew the house to the house of Isreal;--shew them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out hereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof.'--Ezekiel 43:10, 11 London: Printed for, and sold by George Larkin, at the Two Swans without Bishopgate, …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Entire Sanctification
By Dr. Adam Clarke The word "sanctify" has two meanings. 1. It signifies to consecrate, to separate from earth and common use, and to devote or dedicate to God and his service. 2. It signifies to make holy or pure. Many talk much, and indeed well, of what Christ has done for us: but how little is spoken of what he is to do in us! and yet all that he has done for us is in reference to what he is to do in us. He was incarnated, suffered, died, and rose again from the dead; ascended to heaven, and there …
Adam Clarke—Entire Sanctification

Chronicles
The comparative indifference with which Chronicles is regarded in modern times by all but professional scholars seems to have been shared by the ancient Jewish church. Though written by the same hand as wrote Ezra-Nehemiah, and forming, together with these books, a continuous history of Judah, it is placed after them in the Hebrew Bible, of which it forms the concluding book; and this no doubt points to the fact that it attained canonical distinction later than they. Nor is this unnatural. The book …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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