It is. It is a prayer for all
occasions. Any situation you find yourself
in, don't know what to ask as we ought to ask, just go back
to this. There's a lot more in here that
was shown to me by Mr. J.R. Miller. I thought, well, I'm going to
look at this, and I did. I desire that that we all be
instructed to be as our brother Solomon here. To be like him. And we are, if we are believers,
we are like him to some extent. But, look at, let's start in
verse 5. In Gibeon, the Lord appeared
to Solomon in a dream by night. And God said, ask what I shall
give thee. Now I always thought that Solomon
went to God first. Isn't that the way of grace?
We don't seek Him. He finds us. He finds us in whatever
task we're in. But we ought to be constantly
in prayer for one another, for the glory of God, these different
things. But so often, And He finds us. And this is what happened. God said, ask what I shall give
thee. Solomon said, beginning the prayer,
Thou hast showed unto thy servant David, my father, great mercy,
according as he walked before thee in truth and in righteousness
and in uprightness of heart with thee. And thou hast kept for
him this great kindness, that thou hast given him a son, that's
me, to sit on his throne as it is this day. Nothing could change
this historical fact that Solomon was going to be king. Now and
now, O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead
of David my father, and I am but a little child. I know not
how to go out or to come in. What a good position to be in.
And thy servant is in the midst of thy people, which thou hast
chosen, a great people that cannot be numbered nor counted for a
multitude. Give therefore thy servant an
understanding that is a hearing heart to judge thy people, that
I may discern between good and bad, For who is able to judge
this thy so great a people? And the speech pleased the Lord,
that Solomon had asked this thing. And God said unto him, Because
you have asked this thing, and have not asked for thyself long
life, neither asked riches, for thyself, nor ask the life of
thine enemies, but thou hast asked for thyself an understanding
to discern judgment. Behold, I have done according
to thy word. Lo, I have given thee a wise
and understanding heart, so that there was none like thee before
thee, and neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.
And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, riches,
honor, There shall not be any among the kings like unto thee
all thy days. And as thou wilt walk in my ways,
and keep my statutes and commandments as thy father David did walk,
then I will lengthen thy days. And Solomon awoke, and behold,
it was a dream. And he came to Jerusalem, and
stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and offered up burnt
offerings, and offered peace offerings, and made a feast to
all His servants." Now this is one of those wild passages, you
know, if I could think of something to say. But before we get into
the prayer, in verse 6, look at verse 3. loved the Lord. Why did He desire to keep His
statutes? Why did He desire to do right? Because He loved the Lord. Now we know that He loved Him
because Christ first loved Him. But I can't bypass this. And
I ask you and I ask me, why are we here today? Why did we come
this morning? Do we love the Lord? Or are we
just playing religion? Do we come to worship the Lord?
Do we come to give thanksgiving to Jehovah, to adore our Redeemer,
to truly love selflessly our great God in Christ? That's why
we should be here. Now I know sometimes we come,
sometimes the spouse, sometimes the kids, sometimes life gets
under your skin and you're just like, I don't want to go, I don't
want to be there. That's the worst thing you can
do is miss service. Because I may read something,
and if I don't, Matt may read something, there may be a hymn
that is sung, a phrase, or somebody comes or goes and you don't say
anything, you don't feel like talking, somebody gives you a
smile and you're like, I needed that. If there's one thing I've
noticed over the 30-something plus years is when people get
in trouble or things happen, most of the time they quit coming.
And it's just like, why? Your safety is here. I don't
understand it. Well, I'm a pastor. You think
I want to be here all the time? Yes, I have struggles. We're
all flesh. I have struggles just like you
do. But I asked myself, and I looked at this, why are we here? Solomon loved the Lord. Walking
in the statues of David his father. The second thing I find before
we get into the prayer is in verse 5. As I said earlier, he
acknowledged that God revealed Himself to him and to us, or
we would still not know Him or trust in Him. John 15. I think I quoted this the other
day. John 15. Verse 4, "'Abide in Me,' says
Christ, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself
except it abide in the vine. No more can you except you abide
in Me. I am the vine,' says Christ.
You are the branches. He that abideth in Me, and I
in him, the same, bringeth forth much fruit. For without Me, you,
Me, we can do nothing. And in verse 16, you have not
chosen Me, but I have chosen you and ordained you that you
should go forth and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should
remain, that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in My name,
He may give it. So, before we even get into the
prayer, God said, ask what you will. He approached Solomon. Salvation
always begins with God doing His work first upon us. He opens
the heart and mind to come to Christ for life, liberty, and
love. I couldn't find this hymn. I
liked this hymn. I couldn't find it. the Course
booklet, but there's a section in a hymn that we sing that says,
this heart would refuse thee if it was left up to me. It would. It would. And we must own the
truth for ourselves. If the shepherd did not seek
his sheep, we would still be lost in the wilderness of sin
and corruptions. That's just our nature. But now,
let's look at this prayer. Let's look at this amazing prayer. The first thing in this prayer
is he acknowledges mercy, kindness, and God's tenderness towards
him and his family. Look at verse 6, and Solomon
said, You have shown unto thy servant David, my father, great
mercy. And because you've shown him
great mercy, it trickled down. Now, not because he's David's
son, but I'm just saying the fact that if your parents do
well, you're going to have a better leg up on life or whatever. You
know what I'm saying? So, he acknowledges God showing
his Father mercy. He acknowledges mercy, He acknowledges
kindness that it is trusted in, great mercy according as He walked
before thee in truth and righteousness and in uprightness of heart with
thee. And thou, God, has kept for Him this great kindness."
You've kept the kingship in the lineage. He acknowledges help. And praise
and thanksgiving are stated. You've done this, not because
of me, you've done it to my father. Oh, to follow from the heart
these essential truths that are coming out here in Solomon's
lips. He places everything upon Jehovah's
sovereign throne as He should. He admits His own lowly estate. It's as though He's looking up,
beggars at the foothills of mercy. And He admits the proper place
of our kinsmen, mercy, grace, kindness, tenderness, Our Redeemer
is high and exalted, and He acknowledges that Himself is low and lowly.
Look at what He says next. So that's the first thing He
acknowledges. Look at verse 7. Thou hast made your servant king
instead of my father. I'm a little child. I don't know
how young he was. I should have looked that up.
And He says, I'm a little child. I know not how to go in or come. I don't have the wisdom. to judge these people. And they're
a great people. I know not. He acknowledges His
unworthiness and His inability. Brethren, if we could but continually
acknowledge our nothingness before the Ruler over all, if we could
continue to acknowledge, I'm a little child, I am a worm and
no man, says David in another place, I am a needy person. I need grace. I need mercy. I
need peace. Blessed indeed are such as come
to God as little children, because they're of the kingdom. That's
what the Scripture says. So look at this prayer. He first
of all acknowledges God's grace, His mercy, His tenderness. He
hasn't asked for anything yet. And then he says, oh me, I deserve
this. Nope. He says, I'm scared. That's what he's saying. But
look at this request. This is what I want us to see
if we see nothing else. James tells us in James chapter
four, the reason we don't get what we asked for is because
we ask amiss to consume it on our lusts. I need another one
of these. I need another one of those.
When we've already got three or four, I need this. I need that. Look at this request. This is
when we narrow the scope. This desire or request is the
most selfless and unselfish request, which is a loving picture of
Christ. And all such high petitions should be very similar. One,
the honor of Christ, and two, the welfare of the people of
God. That's it. That's it. Not self. Self is not in here. And he says,
verse 8, thy servant is in the midst of great people, and I
don't know what to do, give therefore thy servant an understanding,
which is a hearing, an understanding heart to judge thy people that
I may be discerned between good and bad, for who is able to judge
this thy so great a people? He's asking to be to help them
as he's a ruler. He's doing it for them. Now,
doesn't this sound like Christ? He did everything for his people
and for the glory of his father. That's two things. He made sure
his father was glorified. And his father was glorified
because it says that the prayer pleased God. So God was glorified. And there's only two things.
It's made real simple. Any high petition, whether it's
the pastor, or it's the members, or anybody else, two things,
Lord, honor your son. Whatever I do, how I work, I've
got to work, I've got to pay taxes, may I honor the son. They
look at me, they say, that's from what I can see in the Scripture,
that guy's a believer. A good teacher? Yes. A good student, yes. A good worker,
yes. But that should be after. Teach me, give me a hearing heart. And really good works, you talk
about good works, you should have these two elements. You
know, we have this thing we used to call It was called Save Our
Sunday. People were just self-sanctimonious,
self-righteous. They were, well, I'm doing a
good work for the Lord. You're doing it for yourself or you're
doing it to be seen of men. Two things, good works. These two should be measured
similarly. The honor of Christ and the welfare
of God's people. Or, the care of the household
of faith and the honor and glory of our Savior. This will be of
the utmost importance to the child of grace, as these are
most like our beloved Savior and what He did for us. Aren't
we all kings and priests, made so by grace divine? And thus,
we should make our requests known to God. But also, in verse 10, the Lord
was pleased for what He asked but what he didn't ask. Look
at what it is. Verse 10, And the speech pleased
the Lord, and Solomon had asked this thing. And God said unto
him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked
for what the world... This is what the world thinks
is important. Okay? This is what the world... And
we get like the world. We surely do. You didn't ask for long life.
Our days are numbered. They're appointed. Neither ask
riches. It's always there. It's always there. It's always
there. Ready to rob us of our joy and
peace in Christ. Because as Spurgeon says, you
get a lot of money, now you've got to be responsible and you've
got to be concerned to keep it. Somebody steal it. You didn't
ask for this. You asked selflessly, like the
Lord, like my only begotten Son, you asked to do this thing to discern good and bad, to basically
take care of the flock. That's what he's asking for.
because you have not asked for thyself and life of thine enemies,
but has asked for thyself an understanding to discern judgment." He gave him that, and this is
just so like our Lord, and He gave him what He didn't ask for. Henry used to say, make all you
can and give all you can. We should do that. Oh, the household
of faith. This is what man asks naturally
for. They ask for long life. They
ask for riches. They ask to get promotion, be one up over their
enemies. For thyself. That's what he said. You didn't
ask for yourself. Again, Solomon did not ask for
things of self-gratification, but basically to serve God's
people. What did Christ do? He washed
their feet. And thereby, by doing this, God
will be honored among us. What do we do as a church? It's
very easy. Pray for one another. Pray that
God will be glorified. Salvation of sinners. We'd be
speaking to people in the community. So now what? Now what do we do?
We're just going to do what He did. Look at verse 15. Solomon
awoke and he came to Jerusalem, stood
before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord and offered up burnt
offerings. He offered up prayers and thanksgiving
and sacrifices through Christ. He's that Ark of the Covenant.
He worshipped God. That's the first thing he did.
He worshipped God. through the sacrifice of Christ.
And then He gave peace offerings. Remember that? It showed a transfer
of our sins to Christ, to that Lamb. And look at what He does. He
goes to God first, because God came to Him first, returned in
the last words in verse 15, and made a feast to all His servants. He started serving. He started
serving. It's not, well, what can you
do for me? What can you do for me? It sounds familiar. Turn to John
chapter 13. Christ was among us as One that
served. John chapter 13. And verse 13,
you call me Master, Christ said, and you say, well, for so I am. If I then your Lord and Master
have washed your feet, you also to wash one another's feet. For
I have given you an example that you should do as I have done
to you. Verily, I say unto you, the servant
is not greater than his Lord, neither that is sent greater
than he that sent him. If you know these things, happy
are you if you do them. That's why I go back to the first
question, why are we here? You know, like John the Baptist,
you come to hear somebody talk. I'm not an orator. The Lord put
me here. But I'm here. And you're here. And by God's grace, Let's serve
one another and thereby glorify our Father. Oh brethren, what a kind and
gracious Lord we serve. May we follow Solomon's example
this day. And I say to follow Solomon is
to follow Christ in this example. This is Christ as well. It just hit me between the eyes.
That and some other things I've been listening to this week,
I'm like, good grief. What do I know? I'm going to
stand up here and teach? Preach? Yeah, such as it is. That's okay. Maybe the Lord will
add to this flock. Maybe He'll save our children.
Maybe He'll save our friends, our neighbors. Pray that the Lord be glorified.
May the Lord honor and bless the preaching of His Word. Bruce,
would you close this?