7:1-22 - In verse 14, there
is a call to prayer and promise of blessing: ‘If My people who are
called by My Name 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 hand’. Why is there so little blessing? - ‘You
do not have, because you do not ask’. God will bless mightily - when His
people pray earnestly. Why does the devil have so many victories among
us? - ‘Resist the devil, and he will flee from you’. God will lead us in
His way of victory - when we stop tolerating the devil, and start
resisting him. Why does God seem so far away? - ‘Draw near to God, and
He will draw near to you’ (James 4:2,7-8). God will come near to us - if
we will let Him. ‘I stand at the door and knock; if any one... opens
the door, I will come in...’ (Revelation 3:20).
8:1-9:31
- In Solomon, we see strength and weakness. He was strong - ‘the House
of the Lord was completed’ (8:16). He was also weak. He was infatuated
with foreign women, who did not belong among the redeemed people of God.
He married ‘Pharaoh’s daughter’, a woman who had no love for ‘the holy
places’ of worship (8:11). To the queen of Sheba, a woman who had more
love for ‘her own land’ than for life among the people of God, ‘Solomon
gave all that she desired’ (9:12). Solomon was a complicated man. He had
a real love for the Lord, yet the world still had a strong hold on him.
“O let me feel Thee near me: the world is ever near; I see the sights
that dazzle, the tempting sounds I hear; My foes are ever near me,
around me and within; but, Jesus, draw Thou nearer, and shield my soul
from sin’ (Church Hymnary, 434).
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