Answered Prayer

2 Chronicles 7:12-22

    12 Then the LORD appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him: "I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. 13 When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, 14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 15 Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place. 16 For now I have chosen and sanctified this house, that My name may be there forever; and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually. 17 As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, and do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments, 18 then I will establish the throne of your kingdom, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, You shall not fail to have a man as ruler in Israel.'

    19 "But if you turn away and forsake My statutes and My commandments which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods, and worship them, 20 then I will uproot them from My land which I have given them; and this house which I have sanctified for My name I will cast out of My sight, and will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

    21 "And as for this house, which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and say, Why has the LORD done thus to this land and this house?' 22 Then they will answer, 'Because they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, and worshiped them and served them; therefore He has brought all this calamity on them.'"

The LORD answered Solomon’s prayer and sacrifices of his heart to dedicate the finished house of God, for He Himself chose that place for sacrifice and worship.  God promised that God’s people could come to their place built for that reason when times were difficult and they were suffering or feeling overwhelmed and defeated, and He would hear them.  Those called by His name alone had this privilege to humble themselves, look to Him, pray, and repent (turn) from doing evil (whatever is not acceptable and according to His written word) to be heard, forgiven, and answered with mercy and grace.  God looked to the place of sacrifice and worship for their willingly obedient worship in order to help them, just as we now can boldly approach past the veil directly to His throne of grace in our times of need (Hebrews 4:16).  God’s heart for His people directs His eyes and ears always to us in our prayers, for that shows Him we trust by faith in action to do according to His will and word.  This is the promise made to Solomon for the Messiah’s kingdom in we His people added in Christ.  The warning is also here, for if His people turn away into sin from Him and His commands, the consequences of such idolatry are perilous indeed.  If we walk away, mockers will dishonor God’s name and revel in our sin with glee.  They will mock God and ignore the gospel if we do not constantly strive to follow the Lord with all our hearts, even if we stumble and fall at times.  It is the direction and purpose of the life lived for Christ which brings the gospel of His work to deliver us from sin’s just punishment to life in honoring God through each of us, and He delights to answer the prayers of His people whose hearts are His.  Do we then live for ourselves or the one who bought us at such a great price (1 Corinthians 6:20, 7:23)?  We should therefore live to worship with lives honoring and magnifying Him, not running after the idols of the world which we were pulled out of.  We are to worship in spirit and in truth, as we are the temples of the living God, and by so doing we display the gospel of grace well to the world (1 Peter 4:15) instead of dishonoring Him.  This is the “nation” which God hears when we humble ourselves and turn from sin to follow Him as verse 14 says; it is not a promise for a nation of the world, but of His people.  Too often verse 14 is used in a nationalistic sense, as if we pray God will fix our country.  This passage is about God’s people (who also were the country as a theocracy, which we are not), not just any nation. If we are to claim this as a promise, it is to be interpreted as written - to heal God’s chosen people, who are the church now (including OT and NT believers in Christ). We should as a church cry out to God to heal us as in the Reformation and other times of renewal and repentance, not for a transitory nation state which is not composed of His people nor called a nation of His people. Political misapplication of the scriptures is not godliness nor a basis of worship.