Now, the 1st and 2nd Chronicles,
as we talked about last week, was probably written by Ezra
after he returned from the captivity, after the 70 years of captivity
in Babylon. The 1st Chronicles covers a period
of about 3,000 years from Adam until they brought the children
of Israel back from Babylon and they came to rebuild Jerusalem
and the temple. And I want to tell you this,
and I, you know, 2 Chronicles shows us the mercies of God,
the goodness of God in boosting His people, reviving His people,
refreshing His people after they have forgotten Him, not been as diligent as they
should have been. And you've got to remember that
He's dealing here with a nation. And all these things were written
to teach us and inspire us by God's faithfulness to His people
and how He faithfully walks with them. But I want you to keep
2 Chronicles. Look with me in Psalm 85, because I think that
all of us, all of us would love to see a revival, and it would
start with us. It would start with me. And that's what happens here.
There's several things that happen in this book, and God blesses
Israel in a wonderful way until the kingdoms are divided and
they are taken into bondage. Israel goes to Samaria, Judah
is taken into Babylonian captivity for seventy years. But here in
Psalm 85 and 6, it says in verse 5, Will thou be angry with us
forever? Wilt thou draw out thine anger
to all generations? Willst thou not revive us again,
that thy people may rejoice indeed?" See, that's what David said. He said, Lord, restore unto me
the joy of thy salvation. Turn me, and I shall be turned.
Show us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us thy salvation. And God
said Himself that He'd never leave us, never forsake us, and
He had an elect people, a remnant, even in Israel. And one of the
blessed hopes that we have as believers is that God said, I
am the Lord and I change not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob
are not consumed. So God's faithful to us. Now,
he made a promise here in 2 Chronicles 7.14. And you need to look at
this because I'm going to tell you what this means. You see
this all over the place and people are preaching on it and using
it in 2 Chronicles 7.14. God made a promise, but I don't
think this promise is to us, personally to us. And I'll give
you several reasons why. Now, all of you have heard this
quoted before and preached on before. 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 hear their lament. Now,
I know that people have said that often, you know, about us,
about America, but I'm going to give you several reasons why
I don't think he's talking to us as America, and I don't think
he's talking to us as individuals. First of all, he said, if my
people which are called by my name shall humble themselves,
God's already humbled us. He has humbled us. He has brought
us down as individuals. He's worked the work of grace
in our hearts. There's not a work of grace in this people's hearts.
And secondly, they don't have a new nature. He says that they'll
turn from their wicked ways. If you've got wicked ways, is
your ways wicked? Are you out here lying on God?
Are you using God's name in vain? Are you lying? Are you doing
things to dishonor God every day of your lives? Are you setting
up idols in the place of God? Are you setting up statues and
stones and wood carvings? Have you got idols in your cars?
Got idols in your houses? So when he talks about turning
from the wicked ways, humble themselves. God's already humbled
us. He brought us down. And another
thing is, they don't have the Holy Spirit. So when he's talking
about it, my people, and that's why Solomon prayed, he says,
Lord, if your people do this, and if they do this, will you
do that? The prayers were conditional.
Christ has met all the conditions of God on our behalf already
before God. And thirdly, they don't have
a throne of grace to appeal to. They said, and God said, if my
people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves,
and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways."
Now, what would we turn from if we turn from anything right
now? Is there a condition we must
meet before we can call on God, before we can seek the Lord? Now, we know that America is
a wicked country. We know that religion is a wicked
thing. We know that politicians, they're quicker than a barrel
of fishhooks. And he's not talking to America. All nations that
forget God will be turned into hell, and if the foundations
be destroyed, where in the world will we stay? This is talking
to the people of Israel. And they did not do it, and now
they've been cast to the four winds, then it's the hardest
thing you'll ever do is to find a full-blooded Jew on the tough
side of God's earth right now. They may look like it, they may
act like it, and they may follow the law like it. But to find
one who could say, I'm of Hebrew Hebrews, and follow his lineage
all the way back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that'd be a
different story. So that's the way I see it. And
that's the way I'm going to preach that. I'm not going to ever preach
a message, John, if my people which are called by my name,
and we are God's people, and we're called by his name. Peter
said, you're a chosen generation, you're a holy nation, you're
a peculiar people, that ye should sure forth the praises of him
who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. You
which were not a people are now the people of God. You which
said, I'm not taint of mercy, have now taint mercy. So I'm
not going to apply this to me, and I'm not going to apply it
to you, and I'll never bring a message on this. Because God's
people is not a wicked people. We've got sin, we've got the
flesh, we've got a lot to contend with. But I also know this, that
God has exalted our Lord Jesus Christ to be a Prince and a Savior,
and He grants repentance to Israel, and that's the Israel of God's
elect. And Solomon, beloved, as much
as he understood this, he was just typical of our Lord, and
when he and his prayers, he asked for God to have mercy on them
when they sinned, and if they would pray and meet God's conditions,
would God come and visit them? And God has already, Christ has
already interceded for us, and He always intercedes for us,
and He always bears us upon His name. And that's why it says
there in 2 Chronicles 6.26, and I'll read it to you, it's in
the paper. He says, when the heaven is showed up, this is
one of the prayers you pray, and there is no rain because
they have sinned against thee. Yet if they pray toward this
place, now they've got to turn around wherever they are, and
they've got to pray toward Jerusalem. They've got to face the East.
If they're in the East, they've got to face West. If they're
in the West, they've got to face East. If they're in the North,
they've got to face South. If they're in the South, they've
got to face North. They've got to face toward Jerusalem. If they'll
sink and turn toward this place, and confess thy name, and turn
from thy sin, when thou dost afflict them. Then wilt thou
hear from heaven, Forgive the sin of thy service unto my people
Israel, when thou hast taught them the good way, wherein they
should walk, and then send rain upon the land." See, there's
conditions on these. And God, we're not saved by them.
Christ has met the conditions. So I'm not going to preach that. I'm just not going to preach
conditions. And it is talking to Israel here. It's talking
to Israel. And anybody else who thinks they
have to be conditioned. We're not going to go down that
road. We've been saved by grace. And then let me tell you all
about the temple. The first seven chapters of 2 Chronicles deals
with Solomon building the temple. First thing he done, he went
down to Gibeon and that's where the tabernacle was. And he went
in there and he worshiped at the brazen altar. And then he
took the ark and they said, we're going to build a place for God
to dwell in. And he took 14 years, seven years to build his house,
seven years to build a temple. And it took him seven years to
build that temple in Jerusalem. And up to this time in Israel's
history. There was no permanent place for the ark of God. Remember,
they moved the tabernacle, and they moved the ark, and there
was no permanent place for men and women to meet and worship
God and solemnly meet God and worship Him. So the temple at
Jerusalem changed every minute of it. There's a permanent place
now. God said, I'm going to put my name there. I'm going to recognize
that place. I'm going to set my approval
on this place. Then the temple itself was just
a building. And it was a typical, in every
aspect of it, it glorified our Lord Jesus Christ in more ways
than I could ever remember, that I could ever begin to tell you
about. But it also pictures God's salvation, and pictured our Lord
Jesus Christ. And our Lord Himself said this,
He referred to His body as the temple. He said, destroy this
temple, and in three days I'll raise it up again. That was one
of the things they accused him of when they brought him on trial.
They pointed to the temple in Jerusalem and said, he said,
if he's going to destroy this, if we destroy this temple, he'd
build it back in three days. Now, how in the world he going
to tear it down and build it back in three days? He was talking
about the temple of his body. And when you go through the book
of Hebrews, you also find the Lord Jesus Christ had ever been
a furniture. That's in that temple is typical
of our Lord Jesus Christ. the brazen altar, the mercy seat,
the table of showbread, the candlestick, the laver, everything in that
place, the altar of incense, the veil, the gold, the cedar, everything
in it prefigured our Lord Jesus Christ. And all the priesthood
talked about the Lord Jesus, all the sacrifices poured into
Christ. And it also, that thing also,
represents His church, the body of the people redeemed by His
blood and grace. Our Lord Jesus in Paul said it
like this, No you're not, that you're the temple of God. God
dwells in us now. We're the temple of God. And
the Spirit of God dwells in us. And every believer is also called
the temple of God. He said in 2 Corinthians 6.16,
for you are the temple of the living God. As God hath said,
and this is the extent of the covenant, the long and the short
of it. You are the temple of the living God. God dwells in
this body. Dwells in us by the Holy Spirit. As God hath said, I will dwell
in them and walk in them. And I will be their God and they
shall be my people. Now that's just how the covenants,
that God said, I will, and they shall. And just like I think I showed
you here a few weeks ago, they built those, they made those
stones, they cut out the stones. And they marked them, and then
they carried them and put them in the temple. There was no hammer
heard in the temple. There was no, nothing heard,
no work of man done. They fitted the stones. Marked
them and brought them and put them exactly where they ought
to go, and they all did. That's the way God done us. He
chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, marked
us out, predestinated us to the adoption of children, and then
brought us and put us in the temple, put us in the church
of the living God. That's where we're supposed to
go, and we're built upon the foundation and apostles and the
chief cornerstone of Jesus Christ himself. And God is all God's
work from start to finish. And now look over here in 2 Chronicles
7, verse 10, just a moment. And when that temple was finished,
God was honored, and there was a solemn worship service here. And on the three and twentieth
day of the seventh month, He sent the people away into their
tents, glad and merry in their heart for the goodness that the
Lord had showed unto David, and to Solomon, and to his people
Israel. Then Solomon finished the house
of the Lord, and the king's house, And all that came into Solomon's
heart to make him the house of the Lord, and his house prospered,
prospered. And beloved, I'll tell you what,
it's Solomon's house prospered. Imagine how much Christ's house
prospered. A greater Solomon is here now. And whose house are we? And then,
you know, we talk about Solomon's prayer. You, when you get your
own leisure, when you go through the scriptures, you can read
Solomon's whole prayer. in chapter six, his whole prayer. And he also was a type of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and as he made intercession for Israel,
and he made intercession even for the strangers who would be
numbered among Israel. And all the things that he sought
on behalf of God's people, he asked the Lord to promise to
perform. The beloved God, and those were conditions But God
will do all that Christ seeks on our behalf. He said, hitherto
you've asked nothing in my name. Ask in my name and the Father
will do it. And our beloved, our Lord Jesus Christ, when He
makes intercession for us, His intercession prevails. God hears
Him. God takes up our cause. God takes
up our case. And the Lord Jesus don't mention
our badness. He don't mention our goodness.
He don't mention the sins we've committed. He don't mention the
things that we've done right. He doesn't mention any prayer.
All He mentions when He takes up our intercession is His own
name, His own word, and His own person. Because we have nothing
to commend ourselves to Him. And that's why we go to Him and
He takes our name to the Father. He's the one. What in the world
could we ever do? It's Christ. He takes His evidence. He takes His work and presents
it to the Father. And I tell you, in Solomon's
prayer, he mentions all kinds of situations that children of
Israel might fall into because of their sins. Famine, pestilence, captivity. But you
know what Paul said? Who shall separate us from the
love of God in Christ? Shall famine, persecution, tribulation? No, nothing will. And all he
uses these things to teach them to walk in his way. And God uses
lots of things to cause us and keep us and wean us off of this
world. So when they finished the temple, Solomon prayed that
God would hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and whatever plague
had brought upon them. And he had three bases, and he
based this upon three things. Look over here in chapter 6 and
verse 24, and let me show you. He based it upon three things,
each prayer that he prayed. First of all, in verse 24, he
said, And thy people, Israel. He based it upon thy people,
Israel, your people, your people, put to the worst because of the
enemy. And secondly, he says, You know, we look to the mercy
seat. We look to that sin atoning of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
thirdly, the honor of God's name is at stake. whenever he doesn't
be faithful to his people. And then look in chapter 6 and
verse 32, and let me, 36, and let me just give you a couple
of things that's humbling and instructive about his prayer.
He said here in 2 Chronicles 6, 36, And if they sin against
thee, for there is no man which sinneth not. He said that in
Ecclesiastes. There's not a just man who sinneth
not. And thou be angry with them, and deliver them over before
their enemies, and thou carry them away, and lead them captive
into a land far away or near. Yet if they bethink themselves
in the land, whether they are carried captive, and turn and
pray unto thee in the land of their captivity, say, We have
sinned, we have done amiss, and have done wickedly. If they return
to thee with all their heart, with all their soul, in the land
of their captivity, whether they have carried them captives, and
pray toward their land which thou gavest them, unto their
fathers, and toward the city which thou hast chosen, toward
the house which I have built for thy name. Then heareth thou
from the heavens, even from your dwelling place, their prayer
and their supplications, and maintain their cause, and forgive
thy people which have sinned against thee. Now, my God, let
I beseech thee, thine eyes be opened, let thine ears be attentive
unto the prayer that is made in this place. And O may he do
that for us. Now therefore arise, O Lord God,
into thy resting place. Thou and the ark of thy strength,
let the priest, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation. Let thy
saints rejoice in goodness. O Lord God, turn not away the
face of thine anointed. Remember the mercies of thy servant
David." And I, my, those last four verses Three verses from 40 to 42. So
instructive. And then look in chapter 7, verse
1. Now, when Solomon made an end
of praying, I love this, then fire came down. Fire came down
from heaven, consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices,
and the glory of the Lord filled that house. The Lord put His
stamp of approval on this whole thing. on the temple, on the
sacrifices, on Solomon's prayer, on the worship service, on all
the sacrifices, and His glory, the Lord, filled that house.
God's glory, that Shekinah glory came down, and look what happens
here. And this is what happens when God saves a sinner. And
the priest couldn't even enter into the house because the glory
of the Lord filled the house. And watch what happens now when
God does something for us all. And when all the children of
Israel saw how the fire came down, and saw the glory of the
Lord upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to
the ground upon the pavement and worshipped and praised the
Lord." When you see the glory of God, when you see the glory
of Christ, when you see Him high and lifted up, there's nothing
you can do but fall on your face. and humble yourselves, and bow
yourselves down, and say, O God, how wondrously gracious and merciful
for you are, and have mercy on me, for your mercy endures forever. And I know that's what I've dealt
with a lot Sunday morning, that when a man's got to see the glory
of Christ, he don't see sin, and then he comes to Christ,
he only sees his sin in light of the glory of Christ. When
the glory fell down, that's when the people fell down. When God's
glory was seen, that's when the people worshiped. When God's
glory is seen, that's when people get down before Him. And it's
not. It's only when you see His glory.
And then God appeared to Solomon in a dream. He said, I've heard
your prayer and all that you've asked. And then in chapters 8
and 9, we see how that they sin and they're restored. They sin
and they're restored. But in Solomon's reign, in Solomon's
reign, Israel was blessed with prosperity. They was blessed
with wealth. They was all might. It was incredible. The wisdom, the riches, the works
and pictures of Christ. And Solomon was blessed above
all kings that ever lived on the earth up until that time.
Oh, he was so blessed of God. And then after Solomon's death,
oh, how history changed. A nation that God favored above
all nations on the earth, of all the people on the face of
the earth, God blessed Israel. They were chosen of God, redeemed
and brought up out of Egypt by God, saved by His mighty arm
through the shed blood of a lamb. A people that God Himself had
revealed Himself to, kept His promises to. And the only reason
they lived and continued to live and exist was because God kept
them. But it's also the history of
a people who always turn their backs on Him. Always turn their
backs on Him. But it's also a history that
God would not leave these people to themselves. It always, always,
always have mercy on him and had a remnant according to the
election of his grace. And I'll tell you something,
let me just throw this in as an aside. This is why when people
read these things and see these conditional things, that's how
freewillism and Arminianism gets its toll. People read these things,
and they think because that's the way God dealt with them,
that's the way he deals with us now. But these are all based
on conditions. And that's why people, you know,
they think they can sin and then be restored. Sin and be restored.
Turn your back on God, then you come back, God will have mercy
on you. But now God had an elect people among these things, and
He had mercy on them. And I want to give you some things
about the kings real quick. I said here about the kings.
Judah's kings. In chapters 10 all the way through
chapter 36, it gives us a record of all the kings of Judah. And there were nine good kings
and eleven bad kings, twenty kings altogether, and I cannot
possibly mention all of them. And we're just talking about
Judah's kings now, not Israel's kings. Israel's not very well
mentioned much here in 2 Chronicles. First of all, there was Manasseh.
Manasseh was the wickedest king who has ever reigned over Israel,
and he reigned for fifty-five years. And I tell you, he offered
his own children as sacrifices in fire, but yet God had mercy
upon him, and came to him, and humbled him, and saved him when
he was considered the worst king at that time that ever lived
in Israel. God had mercy upon Manasseh and saved Manasseh. And then there's Reuven. Oh,
what a wicked man Reuven was. And there's always a pattern
in wicked men's lives, whether they're kings or whoever they
are. First of all, there's temptation. You give in to the temptation,
there's sin. And then when you sin, there's spiritual death.
And when God speaks through His prophets, you turn to death here,
and then the devil takes over. And there's Jeroboam. When he
came to the throne, he killed all of his brothers. He killed
every single one of them so nobody would ever be able to have any right to the throne,
or question his right to the throne. And not only that, but
he killed a bunch of the princes in Israel, and then he added
all these inventions, all of these idols, to the worship of
Israel. And he mixed it with idolatry.
And then Ahaz, he introduced some awful, awful things in the
temple and in worship. But Israel, or Judah, had five
good kings. He had nine good kings, but five
especially good kings. And five periods of revival were
under these five kings. There's Asa. Asa. And under him there was a great
reformation of the people. Asa, he said, go down and destroy
all the altars, destroy all the images, tear down all the groves,
and the gods of the heathens. and the Lord heard it and saved
his people. And then Jehoshaphat. Oh, Jehoshaphat, what a wonderful
king he was. When he came to the throne, he
cleansed all the land of all the idols, but yet he didn't
do it perfectly with all of his heart. He entered into league
with Ammon, Moab, and Edom, and God told him to do none of these
things. And what He done there was what He was doing. He was
leaning on the arm of the flesh, making a league with the flesh.
And the only way we can overcome the lust of this flesh is by
looking to the Lord Jesus Christ in Him alone. I mean, beloved,
this flesh is the battle of the Lord's. And if He don't help
us, and help us He will, and this flesh will not overthrow
us. And then there was Joash. Oh, Joash, he was a man King
of Judah, and in chapter 23 and 24, he, beloved, he was going
to restore the temple. He was going to do a great work
there. And because the people came and started supporting the
work and helped rebuild the temple, bring it to its glory, and because
they turned themselves to them, God blessed his people in grace.
And then Hezekiah. Everybody knows about Hezekiah.
Hezekiah, one of the first things he'd done was he cleansed the
temple. They took idols in the temple. They took false worship
into the temple that Solomon had built. And he cleared the
temple, and he restored the Passover. And I tell you, when God visits
His people in grace, the sacrifice, the Passover of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the sacrifice of Christ, that takes the preeminence above
everything else. And everything else that's ever
brought in has to be carried out when Christ has the preeminence. And then Josiah, he started reigning
when he was eight years old. Eight years old. And you remember
I told you about him here a while back. And one thing about Josiah,
when he got 18 years old, they found the Word of God. They found
the Word of the Lord. And he had them to read it. And
oh my, when he read the Word, he had all the people gathered
around, and I mean those folks talking about repenting and throwing
themselves on the mercy of God. He destroyed every false way
that there was. and the word was restored back.
Now, in closing, let me give you just a few things. 2 Chronicles emphasizes, has a
great, great emphasis on the heart. When you read through
it, you can read through it yourself. It says in 2 Chronicles 16, 9,
the Lord watches the heart. The Lord looks, watches the heart. He watches the heart. And he
tells people to seek him with the whole heart. And he despises
half-heartedness. He despises hard-heartedness. And it's abomination, and he
despises pride of heart. When men lift themselves up,
and some of those kings lifted themselves up in pride of heart. And then he talks about, prepare
your heart, set your heart upon me. And then the rest of what
heart, God looks at the heart and has much to do with the heart.
God said he would dwell and revive the man of a broken heart and
a contrite spirit. In the reign of David and Solomon,
picture the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. David reigned as
a king after God's own heart. Solomon reigned and built that
temple and had a glorious reign in wisdom. And both of them picture
a reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then the promise to David
of one that would reign forever is a prophecy of the coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ when He said, I'll raise up a man to
reign on your throne. forever and ever and ever that
tells us that Christ was going to come and sit on David's throne.
And the temple, that temple was just a shadow of the work of
our Lord Jesus Christ. He is both the high priest and
the sacrifice who offers that sacrifice. He is the meeting
place between God and man. When God went in that Those priests
went in that tabernacle. God came down, but only through
a priest. And God meets us in the temple,
in the tabernacle of His blessed Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And I don't want to meet Him
anyplace else. I don't want to face God anyplace
else other than in the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you? No, I don't want
to meet Him anyplace but in Christ.