Solomon Anticipates Praise

January 26, 2020 Background Scripture: 1 Kings 8:54 – 66; 2 Chronicles 7:4 – 9 Lesson Passage: 1 Kings 8:54 – 61 After Solomon finished his dedicatory prayer of Israel’s first temple, he stood up from the kneeling position he had prayed in and led Israel in a praise rally. Again, Solomon acknowledged God’s faithfulness in fulfilling all of the promises He had made to Israel. Solomon’s exaltation of God reached back over a thousand years to the time when Moses led Israel. During those years, God was fulfilling and making great promises to them. Solomon admonished the people of Israel to follow after God in keeping His commandments, statutes, and judgments according to what had been passed down to them from Moses through their elders. He called for loyalty from the people as they lived out their lives before God. He requested that God would retain all of the words of the prayer he had offered to God in the presence of Israel and that it would lead to all people (not just Jews) recognizing the Lord as God. After this praise of God, and exaltation of the people, Solomon then started a fourteen-day celebration to culminate the dedication of the temple. The total amount of sacrifices and burnt offerings was enormous. The temple floor had to be used because the sacrifices were too much for the brass altar. Twenty-two thousand bulls and one hundred, twenty thousand sheep, and grain were sacrificed and offered to the Lord. This was a very extravagant worship with a true sacrificial offering. No expense was withheld for the event that was celebrating the dedication of Israel’s first temple. Some of the sacrificial animals were the main course for the national feast that took place during the two-week celebration. The people of Israel left the celebration rejoicing and filled with hope—having been reminded of the great things God had done for David and for the people of Israel. The temple dedication was a time of celebration of the goodness of God and an opportunity for the people of Israel to participate in a great national feast unlike any other. No doubt, the people left the ceremony feeling proud to be a part of this nation which had been shown such favor by the only true and living God. They left encouraged to live their best life and to continue to reap the favor of God. Solomon had reminded Israel of God’s faithfulness to their ancestors in the past as a reason to praise Him. Seeing the splendor of the temple and the cloud of God occupying the most holy place was a reason to praise Him. Enjoying the bounty of the Promise Land, the livestock and the grain, during the feast was a reason to praise God. How could Israel not offer God the fruit of their lips, that is, the sacrifice of praise. God had been too good to Israel for them not to praise Him. The anticipation that God would continue to be with them into the future was reason enough to praise Him. Solomon had shown himself to be a God-fearing and a godly leader for Israel. Just as God had been with King David in subduing all of Israel’s enemies around them, there was no reason for Israel not to expect God to be with King Solomon in like manner. Solomon praised God and led Israel in a national praise of God. Robert C. Hudson January 3, 2020

Solomon Seeks God’s Blessing

January 19, 2020 Background Scripture: 1 Kings 8:22 – 53; 2 Chronicles 6:12 – 42 Lesson Passage: 1 Kings 8:22 – 30, 52, 53 This is the third lesson in a series that detail King Solomon’s actions at the conclusion of the construction of the first temple in Israel. Solomon led the procession that brought the ark from the tabernacle to the temple. He had witnessed the cloud and the glory of God filling the most holy place after the ark was in place. He addressed the people of Israel concerning the cloud as evidence of God’s physical presence in the midst of His people. Solomon also reminded them of the faithfulness of God in keeping His promises throughout the generations of Israel. In today’s lesson, Solomon knelt down and offered a public prayer of dedication. That prayer has everything that a child of God should do and say at such a time. As king, Solomon showed great humility as he humbled himself in the presence of God and the people of God. It was not a short prayer but neither was it just repetitive or meaningless words that made it long. In his prayer, Solomon continuously acknowledged Israel as God’s very own people whom He had chosen and led out of Egypt through His servant, Moses. Solomon acknowledged that there is no other God in earth or the heavens above. God, alone, is God and Israel had not made themselves His people but God had chosen Israel to be His special people. The completion of the temple was more evidence of God’s faithfulness in that He had promised David that his son would build a temple. Although God in His omnipresence is not limited to a single physical location, yet He would make His glory known in the cloud in the most holy place of the temple—just as He had in the most holy place of the tabernacle during the wilderness years of Israel. Therefore, the temple was dedicated as a holy place. Solomon asked God to be attentive to the prayers that were made or offered in the temple. Not only did he want God to hear the prayers, but Solomon asked God to answer the prayers of those who petition Him in the temple. Solomon specifically included gentile worshipers in the list of those who he wanted God to listen to their prayers and answer them when they prayed from the temple. Solomon anticipated gentiles coming to the temple in witness of the God of Israel as the one and only true God. If God were to answer the prayers of gentiles when they sought Him in the temple, it would serve as confirmation of their faith. Solomon prayed concerning the falling away from the faith of the children of Israel and their forsaking of God. He said once they came to themselves and repented, he wanted God to again restore them and answer their prayers. Further, if God became angry at His people and allowed their enemies to carry them to a foreign land, Solomon asked God to hear their prayers if they turned in the direction of the temple even from a foreign land. And if God allowed natural misfortune to befall His people, such as drought, pestilence, or famine, if the people repented of their sin and returned to God, Solomon asked God to hear and answer their prayer and restore them. In fact, no matter what misfortune might befall Israel, whether it was their fault or not, if they repented and returned to following God and prayed with the temple as a central part of their prayer, Solomon was asking God to hear and answer their prayer. As long as Israel prayed earnestly to God, either in the temple or in the direction of it, Solomon asked God to bless them by honoring their petition. These were the blessings of God that Solomon sought through prayer. Robert C. Hudson January 2, 2020

Solomon Speaks to the People

January 12, 2020 Background Scripture: 1 Kings 8:14 – 21; 2 Chronicles 6 Lesson Passage: 1 Kings 8:14 – 21 The title of this week’s lesson seems quite plain in terms of the message it would likely convey without the benefit of the text to explain it. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to title this lesson: Solomon Addresses the Nation of Israel. That is the message within the text. Speaking to the people certainly seems sublime compared to the fanfare and elaborate worship that accompanied the relocation of the ark of the covenant from the tabernacle to Israel’s first temple (constructed at the directions of King Solomon). It was at the conclusion of the ark’s relocation that King Solomon and the people witnessed the cloud filling the most holy place as the presence of God appeared there. Solomon spoke of the cloud in reference to the statement God made to Moses concerning it while Israel was wandering in the desert as a nomadic tribe of people with the tabernacle in their midst. Solomon was now preparing to formerly dedicate the temple and all of its furnishings. Prior to leading a dedicatory public prayer, Solomon turned towards the people of Israel who were gathered and formerly addressed them. Solomon’s public speech to Israel is the subject of our lesson today. Solomon referred to the dream in which God appeared to his father, David, and talked with him concerning the temple David desired to build for the Lord. God reminded David that even in the wilderness in the midst of Israel, God did not dwell in a building nor did He request that a building be built for Him. Nevertheless, God considered David’s desire to build a temple to be good. However, God did not permit David to build a temple for Him. But God promised David that He would allow David’s son to sit on the throne of Israel after David’s death and his son would build Him a temple for His name. Since Solomon was now the king of Israel in David’s stead, he spoke of his leadership of Israel and the newly constructed temple as being the fulfillment of God’s promise to his father. As a servant of God, Solomon spoke of his hands as though they were the hands of God. Several times Solomon referred to the faithfulness of God in fulfilling His promises. Likewise, he referred to God as the God of Israel. It was important for Israel to know that they belonged to God and that they could always count on God to fulfill His promises. All of the great leaders of Israel, starting from Abraham, had close relationships with God and spoke of God’s faithfulness. Being a successful leader meant getting the people of Israel to follow God with the same faith and confidence that their leaders exhibited. There is only one God. The other people of the world chose to worship idols and nature and even participated in various religious rituals. However, those were not gods that could make and keep promises for them. They were not gods that cared about people but rather the product of the people’s imagination and superstitions. Israel served the one, true and living God, and Solomon took advantage of this public occasion to remind Israel who their God really is. Solomon was not just speaking to the people; he was reminding them of the God they served and how He was dependable throughout the generations of Israel. Once again, God had delivered as promised. Robert C. Hudson January 2, 2020

Solomon Summons the Ark

January 5, 2020 Background Scripture: 1 Kings 8:1 – 13; 2 Chronicles 5:1 – 14 Lesson Passage: 1 Kings 8:1 – 13 We begin the new year with a look at a series of lessons that focus on King Solomon. This series seems appropriate after we ended last year with a series that focused on his father, King David. With the start of Solomon’s reign, the leadership of Israel began to follow a succession from father to son for the first time. Solomon had the benefit of observing the latter years of his father’s leadership of God’s people. There are many lessons to be learned and benefits derived by the person who patiently observes a leader when they will later find themselves trying to fill that person’s shoes. In fact, it is good and wise to observe and learn from a leader even if one does not expect to follow in their footsteps. It is not clear how long Solomon might have known that he would succeed his father as King of Israel—or if he knew it at all prior to his father’s final days. Again, this was the first time in Israel’s history to have a king based on succession occurring in the royal family. Nevertheless, there are still advantages to having an up-close look at leadership from behind the scenes. In the background scripture of today’s lesson, Solomon has just completed his first major task as king of Israel. The construction of Israel’s first “permanent” temple was finally completed. It was magnificent. It was an architectural wonder of the world at that time. It required seven years of construction to complete it. The furnishings and fixtures had been carefully crafted and the interior walls overlaid with gold. The final step was to have the Ark of the Covenant relocated from the tabernacle, or tent, to the Most Holy Place inside the temple constructed by Solomon. King David had dreamed of such an event but he had not lived long enough to see it come to fruition. He ordered the procurement of all of the materials that were needed for the work. King David had led the nation of Israel for forty years. It was a small thing for King Solomon to oversee his first major project as king over the relatively short span of time of seven years. Just as his father had brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem with great fanfare, so too did Solomon have the Ark brought from the tabernacle to the temple. He assembled every leader and elder from throughout Israel at Jerusalem for the relocation of the Ark from the tabernacle to the temple. As King Solomon and the elders of Israel led the procession, the priests brought up the Ark, the tabernacle, and the holy vessels that were kept in the tabernacle. According to the writer of our text, they sacrificed more sheep and oxen than could be counted as part of the procession. The Ark was brought into the temple and place in the most holy place under the cher-u-bims. As soon as the priests exited the holy place, the glory of the Lord, the cloud, filled the temple. The glory of the Lord inside the temple was God’s assurance that He had accepted what was done and how it was done as being pleasing to Him. This was in contrast to the death of the man who unknowingly touched the ark as it was being transported incorrectly the first time David attempted to have it brought to Jerusalem. King Solomon acknowledged that the cloud in the temple was the assurance that God’s presence was now occupying the most holy place. Robert C. Hudson December 16, 2019