“And the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing. And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies; but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment; Behold, I have done according to thy words: lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee” (1 Kings 3:10-12).
I’m telling you. You must notice these characters in the Bible. Now, a lot of people don’t know the difference. They hear preaching, they try to bring things doctrinally into it and they forget about the devotional and practical aspects of Scripture. All Scripture … All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is practical. When we look at things, we want to understand what in the world we are going to do when everything else fails. All that I have is the Book.
So, when I come here to Solomon I’m saying, ‘Here we got a prayer here. He’s going before God. He’s perplexed, man.’ All of a sudden, he’s in charge. We’re talking a million people, at least. That’s vast! And he’s got no understanding. Now, he can lay down the law, whatever he said could of went, but instead he chose the best thing to do when his back was up against the wall. And he remembered his father going before God—remembered that his father, right? –with the psalms that he’d written along the way. I think they heard them. Solomon heard his father’s heart, singing out to God and heard all those things that David would recite, choirs would sing, and so, he wanted that God. And he went to that God. That is who is addressed his prayer to. And what we are seeing here is that God answered his prayer. That’s a blessing.
We’re living in a day and age, I’m telling you, where it is getting difficult for Christians to live right.
Now, we find in 2 Kings in chapter 19, Sennacherib invades Judah and has already killed many kings and taken control of their lands. The king of Assyria sends Hezekiah a letter of threatenings. King Hezekiah was at his wit’s end. When all else fails, right? He takes the letter and lays it before the Lord . . .
“And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD. And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD, and said, O LORD God of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth. LORD, bow down thine ear, and hear: open, LORD, thine eyes, and see: and hear the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent him to reproach the living God. Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands, And have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them. Now therefore, O LORD our God, I beseech thee, save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the LORD God, even thou only” (2 Kings 19:14-19).
Wow! That’s a pretty good prayer. Desperate. Especially when you are seeing this conqueror coming in, after he had conquered all those peoples. He’s killed multitudes of people, we’re talking about thousands, and now his eyes are on Hezekiah’s reign. That’s scary. So, instead of panicking and trying to make deals like we know some other kings did there, he laid the letter out before God.
He just believed that God saw the letter with His eyes. He believed that, he really did!
“Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, That which thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard. This is the word that the LORD hath spoken concerning him; The virgin the daughter of Zion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee. Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel” (2 Kings 19:20-22).
Whoa! Oh, you need Me now, do you?
I mean, you give a letter, by faith, to God because you are in a jam—and He comes back reminding you of some stuff. You ever have that happen to you?
“Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the LORD. For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David’s sake. And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses” (2 Kings 19:32-35).
“. . . the angel of the LORD went out . . .” How many angels? One angel. ONE ANGEL! How many dead? . . .
“an hundred fourscore and five thousand . . .” 185,000 dead . . . ONE ANGEL . . . just emphasizing that.
“behold, they were all dead corpses . . .” Dead corpses. Don’t you like that? I mean, I like my King James Bible. Okay, they were corpses. No, they . . . were . . . DEAD . . . corpses! DEAD CORPSES! Just to let you know. They’s dead. How many? 185,000. There were bodies lying everywhere.
God took care of Hezekiah, but God also read the riot act to him. He told him how his country was acting. In other words, God didn’t have to do it. And Hezekiah came before God and cried out to Him for mercy. Basically, that’s what he did.
And usually, you and I, when we come to God and cry out to Him like that—we already know our condition—but our backs are up against the wall. Where else can we go? Face the music. Go before God the Father—He already knows everything. That’s why I like old-fashioned church altars, the old praying bench. And I know the Spirit’s gotta move in your heart—so if the Spirit doesn’t move on us for a long time—I wonder about that too, don’t you? Why aren’t you moved to do anything anymore? Why am I not? What has to happen? What has to happen, before we can say, ‘When all else fails?’
Now, it’s pretty bad. Yea, most of you got God like you got a spare tire. You only get up and get it when you have a flat. And I think about that and say, ‘Oh man, that’s me, Lord, yea, that’s me.’ Then you got to think, what’s going to happen next to drive me to Him? It would sure be a lot easier if I would just stay in contact with Him—every day— ‘Oh God, I messed up again, please help me.’ You don’t grow
Don’t let this stuff add up! That’s the way to do it.
If the truth was known, if we all really sat down and made a list each of us would have at least a whole day. If we could remember everything and put it on a sheet of paper, ever since we knew the Lord, and what He’s done in our lives, and how He got us out of jams. I mean, really, if itemized them and elaborated a little bit on these—I’m telling you—we’d have a whole lot. But to get us daily to understand how important it is to stay close to Him, that’s a whole other ballgame.
And I guess the message is to get us to focus on staying close to God on a daily basis and not let junk pile up in our trunk, where we keep our spare time.
A lot of times with this eternal security, guess what we do? We take it for granted. We’re saved any way, we’re going to heaven. Hey, what a deal! One preacher suggested that folks that believe in eternal security ought to live like they could lose it just so they will not drift to the left or to the right.
Story after story in the Scriptures have men and women in situation of, ‘when all else fails.’ And Christian, you know, you know that. Why? Well, because you’ve been in situations where, ‘when all else fails.’ If you’re a Christian, come on! You’ve been there! You’ve been up and down in your journey. You’ve been pushed up against the wall. When there ain’t anybody around, you crawled away somewhere and begged God for some answers. I like reading about these characters. I like seeing God acknowledging that He hears your prayers, but also, p. s., you’ve been living like hell! And your heart goes, ‘Oh man, I know Lord, and I know You know. I’m sorry, be merciful.’ Man, anything he gets is better than nothing.
I mean, when you start reading this Bible, character after character starts displaying these same characteristics. Why? Because flesh is flesh, whether under law or under grace. That body has tendencies to do things against an almighty God. And if you belong to God, there is accountability. Now, in the flesh, and then later at the Judgment Seat of Christ. It’s scary stuff, really.
So, we look up different Bible characters going through similar situations, and then we find some Bible promises—maybe with the character—how they did this, and what we should do, by example. And next thing you know, lo and behold, God does something for us. And the worst thing we can do is become skeptical because He doesn’t answer us immediately. Don’t you turn your back on God thinking that He is not hearing. Don’t you do that! It’s so stupid!
Some of us messed up our lives for 20-30 years. You are going to come to God and snap your fingers? He’s not no bellhop, man. He considers our prayer. He considers our life. He knows our journey. He knows the end from the beginning. We wait on Him! He doesn’t wait on us, in the sense of a waiter. We wait on God, and we just trust that He hears us. And by bringing up characters in the Bible sometimes before Him, ‘I wish You would bless me like You blessed Hezekiah.’ It that type of people and their attitudes and their backslidden condition, doing all those wrong things, but You heard them. And then You answered them, favorable! Lord, I need that!’
I mean, you think about . . . we won’t go to all of it . . . but you think about the backslidden Nazarite. You know who he is, right? That judge? Samson, right? He cried out at the end. What happened? Well, God used him to kill more in his death than he did in his life. Well, see? As a Calvinist, that was His plan anyways. Yea right. His eyes were blinded. All these things that took place to him in his humiliation was because of his backslidden condition. Because He disobeyed God. He disobeyed his parents. That was at the outset. He took for granted his strength and played with it. Full of pride! So, God humbled him.
bfl