Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
1 Kings 9:3

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

The dedication ceremony (8:22-9:9)

Solomon then went up on to a specially made bronze platform, knelt down and prayed to God in the presence of the assembled people (2 Chronicles 6:12-13). He admitted that only God’s grace had allowed his father and himself to fulfil their wish of building God a symbolic dwelling place. He prayed that God’s grace would rest likewise upon his royal descendants after him (22-26). Solomon knew there was no necessity for the temple, because God dwells everywhere. But he asked that God would graciously hear his prayer and the prayers of the people when they came to the temple to pray (27-30).

Because the temple was a place of prayer, Solomon thought of various circumstances when people would go there to pray. He asked that judges, such as himself, would have God’s help in making legal judgments where the evidence was uncertain (31-32; cf. Exodus 22:7-12). He thought of cases where God might punish his people through war, famine, disease or other disasters, and he asked that when they repented, God would forgive them (33-40).

In a public display of concern for foreigners, Solomon prayed that they too would come to know God, and that God would answer their prayers as he did those of Israelites (41-43). He asked that God would hear the Israelites when they prayed for success against their enemies in war (44-45). Finally, he asked that God would hear them when they cried for mercy from those whom he sent to punish them (46-53).

God demonstrated his acceptance of Solomon’s prayer by sending fire from heaven to burn up the sacrifices (2 Chronicles 7:1-3). Solomon then prepared to pray for God’s blessing upon the assembled people (54-55). He praised God for his faithfulness to his promises, and asked that God would help his people to obey his law (56-61). The ceremony concluded in typical fashion with large numbers of sacrifices (62-64), and public celebrations continued for a further week (65-66).

In accepting the temple, God again reminded Solomon that the important ‘house’ was not the house of God (the temple), but the house of David (those whom God had appointed to govern Israel for ever). Though in relation to the people they were kings, in relation to God they were servants, and they had to be obedient to his will if they were to enjoy the fulfilment of his promises (9:1-5). Solomon had built the temple to show that God dwelt among his people. But if the king or his people rebelled against him, God would destroy the temple to show his displeasure with them (6-9).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

GOD WARNED SOLOMON AGAINST APOSTASY

"And it came to pass when Solomon had finished building the house of Jehovah, and the king's house, and all Solomon's desire which he was pleased to do, that Jehovah appeared to Solomon the second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. And Jehovah said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, that thou hast made before me: I have hallowed this house which thou hast built, to put my name there forever; and mine eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually. And as for thee, if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep my statutes and mine ordinances; then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom over Israel forever, according as I promised to David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel. But if ye shall turn away from following me, ye or your children, and not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but shall go and serve other gods, and worship them; then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And though this house is so high, yet shall every one that passeth by it be astonished, and they shall hiss; and they shall say, Why hath Jehovah done this unto this land, and to this house? and they shall answer, Because they forsook Jehovah their God, who brought forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath Jehovah brought all this evil upon them."

The first difficulty here is the matter of dating this Divine appearance to Solomon. Both Keil and Hammond place this event in the 24th year of Solomon's reign,C. F. Keil, Keil and Delitzsch's Old Testament Commentaries, Vol. 3a, p. 113. but there is no certainty that the Temple remained undedicated for the thirteen years between its completion and the completion of the king's palaces.

Yes, God here told Solomon that he had heard his prayer and hallowed the Temple, etc., but it seems unlikely that God would have waited thirteen years to answer Solomon's prayer, which, according to its place in this narrative, took place upon the completion of the Temple. We find it very difficult to suppose that Solomon had to wait thirteen years for this assurance that God had answered his prayer at the dedication. As a matter of fact, the cloud, symbolizing the Divine presence, was an assurance then and there that God had heard and answered his supplication.

"I have heard thy prayer … and have hallowed this house" These words should be understood as God's reference to what he had already done thirteen years prior to this special warning of Solomon against apostasy.

"I will cut off Israel out of the land … Israel shall become a proverb and a byword … this house … so high … yet everyone that passeth by shall be astonished" These dreadful consequences were promised to ensue following Israel's rejection of God and falling into idolatry. This warning was not, "Added by some postexilic editor,"Broadman Bible Commentary, Vol. 3, p. 185. as suggested by Matheney. This writer has no patience with scholars who feel compelled to get rid of every predictive prophecy which they encounter in the Word of God. If the Bible is not literally filled with predictive prophecy of the most circumstantial and exact kind, then there's not a line of it worth reading. The passage before us is an example. Not only did God reveal to Solomon in the vision here that the shameful apostasy of Israel would result in their deportation to a foreign land, and the demolition of their vaunted Temple; but Jeremiah (Jeremiah 26:18) and Micah (Micah 3:12) prophesied the same thing. The Biblical critics, determined, if possible, to negate every predictive prophecy in the Holy Bible have here employed the services of their mythical `Deuteronomist' to put these prophecies in Solomon's vision centuries after their fulfillment! True believers cannot be deceived by that type of fembu.

"Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people" We agree with Gates that, "This prophetic warning looks even beyond the captivity, and envisions the later rejection of Israel for their repudiation of Jesus Christ the Messiah."Wycliffe Old Testament Commentary, Kings, p. 320.

"And though this house is so high" Solomon's Temple was built upon the highest eminence in Jerusalem; and this reference to the Temple's highness stresses the fact that it would be, "Just as conspicuous in its ruin as it was in it its glory."Albert Barnes, Kings, p. 171.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

The answer given by God to Solomon’s prayer is reported more fully in 2 Chronicles 7:12-22.

When God puts His Name in the temple He does it, in intention, “forever.” He will not arbitrarily withdraw it; there it will remain “forever,” so far as God is concerned. But the people may by unfaithfulness drive it away 1 Kings 9:7-9.

And mine eyes and my heart - An answer in excess of the prayer 1 Kings 8:29; “Not Mine eyes only, but Mine eyes and Mine heart.”

Smith's Bible Commentary

First Kings chapter nine as we begin our study in the Word this evening.

At the beginning of Solomon's reign, the Lord appeared unto him while he was in Gibeon, there offering sacrifices unto God. And the Lord basically said to Solomon, "Ask me whatever you want."

So Solomon asked that the Lord would give him wisdom and understanding that he might govern over this glorious people of God. And God was pleased with the request that Solomon made. Because he didn't ask for riches, or the life of his enemies, or for fame, the Lord said, "Because you have asked that you might just have wisdom and understanding, I'm going to give you what you have asked. But I'm going to give you even more than that. I'm going to give you honor and fame and riches and all in abundance."

So as we get to the ninth chapter, we find the Lord appearing to Solomon the second time. Solomon has now completed the temple, which took him seven years to build and he has also completed his own palace, which took him thirteen years to build. So the twenty-year building project is over and the Lord now is appearing unto Solomon who has, of course, gained in fame and stature and notoriety through the world for his marvelous wisdom and the glories of the kingdom that he has established.

And so when he was finished the building,

The LORD came to him the second time, even as he appeared to him in Gibeon. And the LORD said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, which you have made before me: and I have hallowed this house, which you have built, to put my name there for ever; and my eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually ( 1 Kings 9:2-3 ).

Now the Lord is referring to the prayer of dedication of Solomon that we studied last week in the eighth chapter. After he finished the temple, he prayed this glorious prayer of dedication as he asked the Lord to keep His eye upon this house continually. And if the people would get into trouble, if there would be plagues in the land, if there would be a war, if they were taken captives, whatever, then as the people would pray and seek the Lord in this house, that the Lord would hear and answer and meet their needs.

And so the Lord answers Solomon concerning the prayer of dedication and He acknowledges the fact that He has heard his prayer.

And the Lord said,

If you will walk before me, as David your father walked, in the integrity of heart, and uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded thee, and you will keep my statutes and my judgments: Then I will establish the throne of your kingdom upon Israel for ever, as I promised to David your father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel ( 1 Kings 9:4-5 ).

Again I would like to point out the fact that it is a conditional promise. "If thou will walk before me as David your father did, then I will establish your throne forever." It was a conditional promise of God, which they failed to keep the condition. Thus God was not obligated to keep the promise.

Now as I pointed out, the group known as British Israelites, those who tried to identify the Anglo-Saxon races as the ten lost tribes of Israel, they made a big point that God made a perpetual covenant with David that there would never cease one from his family sitting upon the throne. And it is their premise that the queen of England today is a direct descendant of David because God kept His promise. And that Jeremiah had slipped out of Israel at the time of the Babylonian captivity, took one of the princes to Egypt and then later went to England and established a colony there in England and that the Anglo-Saxon people are in reality a part of the ten lost tribes of Israel. And they have a lot of, you know, things that they go through to try to prove their points. But God's promise to Solomon was a conditional promise. The conditions, which of course, Solomon failed to keep.

The Lord said,

But if [here again, if] ye shall turn from following me, or your children, and will not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods, and worship them: Then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among the people: And at this house, which is high, every one that passeth by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss; and they'll say, Why hath the LORD done thus unto this land, and to this house? And they shall answer, Because they forsook the LORD their God, who brought forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and they have worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath the LORD brought upon them this evil ( 1 Kings 9:6-9 ).

So the conditional promise; "if you'll obey Me, if you'll follow Me, then there'll never cease one from your family sitting upon the throne. But if you or your children forsake Me, then Israel will be actually cut out of the land." So because they did forsake the Lord, they were cut out of the land. And God kept His word that He gave to Solomon.

Now I would like to just point out one thing at this point, and that is, a lot of times there come warnings from the Lord to us by various means. And quite often when God speaks, we think, "Oh, that's not necessary to talk to me about that, Lord, you know that's one area where I just don't have any problem." But let me suggest whenever God speaks to you about any area of your life, you listen carefully because God doesn't waste words. And if He talks to you about some issue in your life, you can be sure that's the issue where you're going to be facing problems down the road.

Now I'm sure that here is Solomon, he has just dedicated the temple, it's been a very moving experience. They'll had all kinds of sacrifices. Everybody is rejoicing and worshipping the Lord, praising Jehovah, and just, it's a glorious time of worship and exultation. And now the Lord comes and Solomon is there and has prayed. And now the Lord is speaking and the Lord says, "Solomon, if you will follow Me and all, then I will establish your throne. But if you forsake Me and you start to worship other gods," and I'm sure at this point Solomon is saying, "Oh, Lord, You don't need to tell me about that. Oh, Lord, how could I ever do that?" You know. And yet it is the very thing. And all the way through the Scriptures, it is interesting how that the Lord always seems to warn people in those areas where they are going to be tested and tried further down the road.

So pay attention when God speaks to you no matter how remote it may seem at that minute that you would ever be tempted or have problems at that area. No matter how confident you may be in that particular area, if God starts to talk to you about some particular area of your life, you be careful and listen. The Bible says, "Take heed when you think you stand lest you fall" ( 1 Corinthians 10:12 ).

For you see, where I am confident, and I think, "Well, I've got that wired, I don't have to worry about this area," is an area where I'm prone to trust in myself. I'm prone to be self-reliant in those areas because I think, "Well, that's something that I really am strong in that area. Paul said, "when I am strong, then I am weak" and "I will glory in my weaknesses, that the power of God might be revealed in me" ( 2 Corinthians 12:9 ). So usually Satan will not trip us up in our weak points because in those points, we know that we have to depend upon the Lord. It's quite often a person falls in that area where he has great confidence. He feels very strong and very confident in this particular area. And that is the area where Satan so often trips us up. So listen when God talks to you no matter how it may seem unnecessary to you at the particular moment. The Lord knows what He's talking about.

Now it came to pass after the time that he had built all of the house and so forth, Hiram the king of Tyre had furnished him with all of the cedar trees and with gold, according to all of his desire. And so Solomon gave to him twenty cities of the area of the upper Galilee and around the Sea of Galilee. He gave to as just sort of a gift twenty cities in that beautiful area of the Galilee, in the upper Galilee.

And Hiram came and looked at the cities; and he was displeased with them ( 1 Kings 9:12 ).

Now I don't understand why, it's such a beautiful area, and yet Hiram was displeased with the cities that Solomon gave him.

He says, What are these cities that you have given to me, my brother? And he called them Cabul ( 1 Kings 9:13 ).

Or displeasing, "Cabul". It's not pleasing.

So Hiram sent to the king sixty talents of gold. And this is the reason of the levy which king Solomon raised; to build the house of the LORD, and his own house, the wall of Jerusalem, he built the cities of Hazor, Millo, Megiddo, Gezer ( 1 Kings 9:14-15 ).

For his father-in-law actually to give him a present. Sent his troops up, captured Gezer and then gave it to Solomon as a present. And it tells of the cities that Solomon established and built. The cities to store all of his goods, the horses, the chariots, and all. Remember he had forty thousand horses.

And so he made slaves of all of the remnant of the people who lived in the land before the children of Israel came in. But of the Israelites, he did not make slaves. And so Solomon then built the Pharaoh's daughter a special city. She evidently didn't care too much for Jerusalem so he built a city for her, the city of Millo.

And three times in a year ( 1 Kings 9:25 ).

That would be the great feast days.

Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar which he built before the LORD. And Solomon made [developed] a navy [and he sort of based the navy down] in the area of Eloth ( 1 Kings 9:25-26 ).

And the navy would head on down to Africa where they would collect gold and bring it back and Solomon made gold as just everything around Israel. It became just the golden capital of the world.

Silver, it says, was as common as rock. He didn't really put much value into silver. He really had a thing for gold and so he gathered gold from all over and brought it into the land.

"

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

1. God’s covenant with Solomon 9:1-9

God responded to Solomon’s dedication of himself and his nation as He had responded to David (2 Samuel 7) and to Solomon earlier (ch. 3). He offered Solomon continued blessing for continued faithfulness.

First, God promised He would do what Solomon had petitioned in his dedicatory prayer (1 Kings 8:22-53; 1 Kings 9:3). Second, He said He would provide a continuous line of descendants from Solomon to sit on Israel’s throne if Solomon would continue to follow God faithfully. The alternative would have been cutting off Solomon’s descendants and replacing them with descendants from another branch of David’s family (cf. the fate of Eli’s house). God maintained Solomon’s line because, generally speaking, Solomon remained faithful to the Lord. Third, if Solomon, the subsequent kings, or the people abandoned the Lord’s covenant, He would do three things. He would remove the people from their land, abandon the temple, and make Israel a byword instead of a blessing. This, too, God did for Israel, because overall, Israel did not remain faithful.

"The rest of Kings will be preoccupied with the blessing which follows obedience and the curses enacted after any failure to obey. The reference point will be to God’s revealed word and the language is that of Deuteronomy." [Note: Wiseman, p. 125.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

D. The Fruits of Solomon’s Reign chs. 9-11

The writer next recorded what happened to Solomon and to Israel as a result of the king’s provision to exalt the reputation of Yahweh among His people. He narrated God’s covenant with Solomon (1 Kings 9:1-9), further evidences of Yahweh’s blessing (1 Kings 9:10-28), Solomon’s greatness (ch. 10), and Solomon’s apostasy (ch. 11).

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

And the Lord said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication that thou hast made before me,.... With delight and pleasure, and had accepted it; meaning the prayer recorded in the preceding chapter:

I have hallowed this house which thou hast built; by the cloud of glory filling it, and by fire descending from heaven, and consuming the sacrifices offered in it, 2 Chronicles 7:1

to put my name there for ever; there to grant his presence, so long as his pure worship should be continued in it; so the Targum adds,

"and my Shechinah or divine Majesty shall abide in it, if my will is done there continually:''

and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually; his eyes of Providence should be upon it, to watch over it, and protect it, and his worshippers in it; and he should have a cordial regard to the sacrifices there offered, and to the persons of the offerers, so long as they offered them in a right way, and to right ends and purposes.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      1 And it came to pass, when Solomon had finished the building of the house of the LORD, and the king's house, and all Solomon's desire which he was pleased to do,   2 That the LORD appeared to Solomon the second time, as he had appeared unto him at Gibeon.   3 And the LORD said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, that thou hast made before me: I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.   4 And if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep my statutes and my judgments:   5 Then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom upon Israel for ever, as I promised to David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel.   6 But if ye shall at all turn from following me, ye or your children, and will not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods, and worship them:   7 Then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people:   8 And at this house, which is high, every one that passeth by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss; and they shall say, Why hath the LORD done thus unto this land, and to this house?   9 And they shall answer, Because they forsook the LORD their God, who brought forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have taken hold upon other gods, and have worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath the LORD brought upon them all this evil.

      God had given a real answer to Solomon's prayer, and tokens of his acceptance of it, immediately, by the fire from heaven which consumed the sacrifices (as we find 2 Chronicles 7:1); but here we have a more express and distinct answer to it. Observe,

      I. In what way God gave him this answer. He appeared to him, as he had done at Gibeon, in the beginning of his reign, in a dream or vision, 1 Kings 9:2; 1 Kings 9:2. The comparing of it with that intimates that it was the very night after he had finished the solemnities of his festival, for so that was, 2 Chronicles 1:6; 2 Chronicles 1:7. And then 1 Kings 9:1; 1 Kings 9:1, speaking of Solomon's finishing all his buildings, which was not till many years after the dedication of the temple, must be read thus, Solomon finished (as it is 2 Chronicles 7:11), and 1 Kings 9:2; 1 Kings 9:2 must be read, and the Lord had appeared.

      II. The purport of this answer. 1. He assures him of his special presence in the temple he had built, in answer to the prayer he had made (1 Kings 9:3; 1 Kings 9:3): I have hallowed this house. Solomon had dedicated it, but it was God's prerogative to hallow it--to sanctify or consecrate it. Men cannot make a place holy, yet what we, in sincerity, devote to God, we may hope he will graciously accept as his; and his eyes and his heart shall be upon it. Apply it to persons, the living temples. Those whom God hallows or sanctifies, whom he sets apart for himself, have his eye, his heart, his love and care, and this perpetually. 2. He shows him that he and his people were for the future upon their good behaviour. Let them not be secure now, as if they might live as they please now that they have the temple of the Lord among them, Jeremiah 7:4. No, this house was designed to protect them in their allegiance to God, but not in their rebellion or disobedience. God deals plainly with us, sets before us good and evil, the blessing and the curse, and lets us know what we must trust to. God here tells Solomon, (1.) That the establishment of his kingdom depended upon the constancy of his obedience (1 Kings 9:4; 1 Kings 9:5): "If thou wilt walk before me as David did, who left thee a good example and encouragement enough to follow it (and advantage thou wilt be accountable for if thou do not improve it), if thou wilt walk as he did, in integrity of heart and uprightness" (for that is the main matter--no religion without sincerity), "then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom, and not otherwise," for on that condition the promise was made, 1 Kings 132:12. If we perform our part of the covenant, God will not fail to perform his; if we improve the grace God has given us, he will confirm us to the end. Let not the children of godly parents expect the entail of the blessing, unless they tread in the steps of those that have gone before them to heaven, and keep up the virtue and piety of their ancestors. (2.) That the ruin of his kingdom would be the certain consequence of his or his children's apostasy from God (1 Kings 9:6; 1 Kings 9:6): "But know thou, and let thy family and kingdom know it, and be admonished by it, that if you shall altogether turn from following me" (so it is thought it should be read), "if you forsake my service, desert my altar, and go and serve other gods" (for that was the covenant-breaking sin), "if you or your children break off from me, this house will not save you. But, [1.] Israel, though a holy nation, will be cut off (1 Kings 9:7; 1 Kings 9:7), by one judgment after another, till they become a proverb and a by-word, and the most despicable people under the sun, though now the most honourable." This supposes the destruction of the royal family, though it is not particularly threatened; the king is, of course, undone, if the kingdom be. [2.] "The temple, though a holy house, which God himself has hallowed for his name, shall be abandoned and laid desolate (1 Kings 9:8; 1 Kings 9:9): This house which is high." They prided themselves in the stateliness and magnificence of the structure, but let them know that it is not so high as to be out of the reach of God's judgments, if they vilify it so as to exchange it for groves and idol-temples, and yet, at the same time, magnify it so as to think it will secure the favour of God to them though they ever so much corrupt themselves. This house which is high. Those that now pass by it are astonished at the bulk and beauty of it; the richness, contrivance, and workmanship, are admired by all spectators, and it is called a stupendous fabric; but, if you forsake God, its height will make its fall the more amazing, and those that pass by will be as much astonished at its ruins, while the guilty, self-convicted, self-condemned, Israelites, will be forced to acknowledge, with shame, that they themselves were the ruin of it; for when it shall be asked, Why hath the Lord done thus to his house? they cannot but answer, It was because they forsook the Lord their God. See Deuteronomy 29:24; Deuteronomy 29:25. Their sin will be read in their punishment. They deserted the temple, and therefore God deserted it; they profaned it with their sins and laid it common, and therefore God profaned it with his judgments and laid it waste. God gave Solomon fair warning of this, now that he had newly built and dedicated it, that he and his people might not be high-minded, but fear.

Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible

Essential Points in Prayer

February 10, 1887 by C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892)

“The Lord appeared to Solomon the second time, as He had appeared unto him at Gibeon. And the Lord said unto him, I have heard your prayer and your supplication, that you have made before Me: I have hallowed this house, which you have built, to put My name there forever. And My eyes and My heart shall be there perpetually.” 1 Kings 9:2 , 1 Kings 9:3 .

Beloved Friends, it was an exceedingly encouraging thing to Solomon that the Lord should appear to him before the beginning of his great work of building the temple. See in the third chapter of this First Book of the Kings, at the fifth verse, “In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night: and God said, Ask what I shall give you.” Some of us remember how the Lord was with us at the beginning of our life-work when we started as young men and women newly converted, full of zeal and earnestness determined to do something for the Lord. How we sought His face! With what simplicity, with what tenderness of heart, with what dependence upon Him and diffidence as to ourselves! We remember, as HE remembers, the love of our espousals those early days. I cannot forget when the Lord appeared unto me in Gibeon at the first. Truly there are things about the lives of Christian men that would not have been possible if God had not appeared to them at the beginning. If He had not strengthened and tutored them and given them wisdom beyond what they possess in themselves. If He had not inspirited them. If He had not infused life into them, they had not done what they have already done. It is a priceless blessing to begin with God and not to lay a stone of the temple of our life-work till the Lord has appeared unto us. I do not know, however, but that it is an equal, perhaps a superior blessing, for the Lord to appear to us after a certain work is done. Even as in this case “The Lord appeared to Solomon the second time, as He had appeared unto him at Gibeon.” Solomon had now finished the temple and he needed another visit from on high. There is great joy in completing a work. And yet there is, to some minds, a great letdown, when the once engrossing service ceases to keep the mind upon the stretch. You run up hill and you have gained the summit there is no more climbing for the present and then you almost wish that you had to struggle again. A work like that of Solomon lasting for seven years must have become a delight to him to see the house growing and to mark all the stages of its beauty. And so it is with any special and notable work which we are called to do early in life. We get wedded to it, we are glad to see it grow under our hand. And when at last that particular portion of our service is finished, we feel a kind of loss. We have grown used to the pull upon the collar we have almost leaned upon it and we feel a difference when we are at the top of the hill. Personally I never feel exhilaration at a success but a certain sinking of heart when the tug of war was over. We see the same in the story of God’s greater servants. We note it specially in Elijah when he had performed his mighty work on Carmel and slain the prophets of Baal he felt an exultation in his spirit for a while and he ran before the chariot of the king in the joy of his soul. But there came a reaction afterwards of a very painful kind. The case of Solomon is not parallel. And yet I should think that it might have been and probably was so with Solomon that he was in a condition of special need when the temple was finished. He may have been in peril of pride, if not of depression in either case it was a remarkable season and its need must have been remarkable, also “and so the Lord appeared unto Solomon the second time, as He had appeared unto him in Gibeon.” Brethren, we need renewed appearances, fresh manifestations, new visitations from on High. And I commend to those of you who are getting on in life that while you thank God for the past and look back with joy to His visits to you in your early days you now seek and ask for a second visitation of the Most High. Not that I do not think that you have visitations from God full often and walk in the light of His countenance. But still, though the ocean is often at flood twice every day yet it has its spring tides. The sun shines whether we see it or not, right though our winter’s fog, and yet it has its summer brightness. If we walk with God constantly, there are still seasons when He opens to us the very secret of His heart and manifests Himself to us not only as He does not unto the world but as He does not at all times to His own favored ones. All days in a palace are not days of banqueting, and all days with God are not so clear and glorious as certain special Sabbaths of the soul in which the Lord unveils His glory. Happy are we if we have once beheld His face. But happier still if He again comes to us in fullness of favor. I think that we should be seeking those second appearances we should be crying to God most pleadingly that He would speak to us a second time. We do not want a re-conversion, as some assert. I hope that we do not. If the Lord has kept us, as we should be, steadfast in His fear, we are already possessors of what some call “the higher life.” This have many of us enjoyed from the very first hour of our spiritual life. We do not need to be converted again. But we do wish that again, over our heads, the windows of Heaven should be opened that again, a Pentecost should be given, and that we should renew our youth like the eagles to run without weariness and walk without fainting. May the Lord fulfill to every one of His people tonight His blessing upon Solomon! “The Lord appeared to Solomon the second time, as He had appeared unto him at Gibeon.” Now, what the Lord spoke upon in the commencement of His interview with Solomon concerned his prayer. And as the Lord answered that prayer, and here, in this second appearance, recapitulated the points of it, we may be sure that there was much about that prayer which would make it a model for us. We shall do well to pray after the manner which successful pleaders have followed. In this case we will follow the Lord’s own description of an accepted prayer. I shall use the text to that end briefly in two or three ways. I. First, OUR PROPER PLACE IN PRAYER. The Lord said, “I have heard your prayer and your supplication, that you have made before Me.” There is the place to pray “before Me” that is to say, before the Lord. Let us talk a little about this matter

“Whenever we seek HIM He is found, And every place is hallowed ground.”

But we should take care that the place is hallowed by our prayer being deliberately and reverently presented before God. This place is not always found. The Pharisee went up to the temple to pray but evidently he did not pray “before God” so that even in the most holy courts he did not find the place desired. In his own esteem he prayed but in his going home to his house without justification there was evidence that he either had not prayed at all or that he had not prayed before God. It is not because you pass these portals and come into these pews that you are before God. No, and if you were to seek the shrines which have been most eminently regarded in the Church if you stood by the site of Jerusalem, if you sought out that little skull-like hill called “Calvary,” and prayed there or if you went to Olivet and bowed your knee in Gethsemane, you might not therefore be before God. The nearer the Church sometimes the farther from God. And in the very center of it, in the midst of the assembly where prayer is likely to be made, you may not be “before God” at all. Praying before God is a more spiritual business than is to be performed by turning to the east or to the west, or bowing the knee, or entering within walls hallowed for ages. Alas, it is easy enough to pray and not to pray before God! And it is not so easy it is indeed a thing not to be done except by the power of the Spirit to “enter into that which is within the veil,” and to stand before the Mercy Seat, all blood-besprinkled, consciously and really in the presence of the Invisible, to fulfill that precept, “You people, pour out your hearts before Him.” “Before Him” is the place for the soul’s outpouring, and blessed, are they that know it and find it! This blessed place “before God” can be found in public prayer. Solomon’s prayer before God was offered in the midst of a great multitude. The priests stood in their places and the Levites kept their due order. The people were gathered together and all the armies of the tribes of Israel stood in the streets of the holy city when Solomon bowed his knee and cried mightily unto his God. It is evident that he was enabled, that day, not to pray to please the people that they might note his eloquent language and be gratified with the appropriate performance he was inspired to pray before the Lord. Ah, Brethren, those of us who have to conduct your devotions strive hard that we may be seen of God in secret when heard of men in public. And I am sure that we never pray so rightly or so usefully for you as when we only remember you in a very inferior sense but seem to be surrounded as with a cloud, enclosed within the secret place of the Most High, even when we stand supplicating aloud for you in the public assembly of God’s people. The same is true of each of you it is wrong for you, in a Prayer Meeting, to pray with a view to an individual of importance, or with the remembrance of those present whose respect you would like to obtain. The Mercy Seat is no place for the exhibition of your abilities. It is even more evil to take the opportunity of making personal remarks about others. I have heard of oblique hints having been given in prayer. I am sorry to say that I have even heard of remarks which have been so directly critical and offensive that one knew what the Brother was saying and lamented it. Such a proceeding is altogether objectionable and irreverent. We do not pray in Prayer Meetings to correct doctrinal errors, nor to teach a body of divinity, nor to make remarks upon the errors of certain Brethren, nor to impeach them before the Most High. These things should be earnest matters of supplication but not of a sort of indirect preaching and scolding in prayer. It is conduct worthy of the Accuser of the Brethren to turn a prayer into an opportunity of finding fault with others. Our prayer must be “before God,” or else it is not an acceptable prayer. And if eyes and memory, and thought can be shut to the presence of everybody else, except in that minor sense in which we must remember them in sympathy, then it is in the Presence of God that we truly pray. And that, I say, may be done in public, if Divine Grace is given. For this we have need to pray, “O Lord, open my lips. And my mouth shall show forth Your praise.” But prayer before God can just as well perhaps more readily be offered in private, though I am not sure that it is not easily missed, even there. You are in your room where you are accustomed to pray. Do you not find yourself upon your knees repeating goodly words, while your heart is wandering? May you not confess that often the prayer which has been a matter of habit, has been said as much before the walls of your room, or before the bedpost, as before God? You have not realized His Presence you have not spoken distinctly and directly to Him. Although you have observed the Savior’s canon and have shut the door and nobody else has been there so that you have not prayed in the presence of others you have mainly prayed in your own presence and God has to your inmost soul been far away. It is poor work merely to talk piously to yourself. There is not much that comes of pouring your heart into your heart, praying your soul into your own soul it is neither an emptying of self, nor a filling with God it does but stir up what had been quite as well left as dregs at the bottom. Better far is the course prescribed in that hallowed precept, “You people, pour out your heart before Him” turn them bottom upwards, let all run out before God and so let room be left for something better and more Divine. Pouring out your soul within yourself does not come to much. And yet often that is about what our prayer amounts to a recapitulation of wants without a grasp of Divine supplies. A bemoaning of weakness without a reception of strength. A consciousness of nothingness but not a plunging into all-sufficiency. Brothers and Sisters, the main point of supplication is neither to pray in the presence of others, nor yet, first of all, in your own presence but to present your prayer “before God.” Now, it is clear that this means that the prayer is to be directed to God. “Well,” says one, “I know that.” I know you do and yet, my Brother, you too often forget it. Like a playful boy you get your bow and arrows and shoot them anywhere. The way to pray is to take in hand the aforesaid bow and arrows and you think I am going to say shoot with them with all your might. But I am not in such haste. Wait a bit yes, draw the string and fit the arrow to it but wait, wait! Wait till you have your eyes fixed on the target! Wait till you see distinctly the center of the mark! What is the use of shooting if you have not something to shoot at? Wait, then, till you know what you are going to do. You want to strike the white, to pierce the center of the target. Be sure, then, that you get it well into your eye! Imitate David, who says, “In the morning will I direct my prayer unto You and will look up.” He has fixed the arrow, drawn the bow and taken deliberate aim now is the time for the next act. He lets the arrow fly. How well directed! Look! He has hit the center! He caught the mark with his eyes, and therefore, he has struck it with his arrow. Oh to pray with a distinct object! Indefinite praying is a waste of breath. It will never do to begin praying because the time has come for it. We must think, “I am about to ask of God what I want I am to speak to the great King of kings, from whom all Divine Grace must come it is to Him that my prayer must be directed. What, then, shall I ask at His hands?” Does anybody here suppose that the repeating of certain words out of a book, or of his own making, has any virtue in it? Some seem, by their frequent repetitions of that blessed model of prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, to think that there is a magical charm in that sacred arrangement of words. But I tell you solemnly you might as well repeat that perfect prayer backwards as forwards, if your heart is not in it. If your very heart is not in it and if your soul is not looking Godward, you profane your Lord’s Words and are guilty of all the greater sin because of their excellence. Make not praying a piece of witchcraft and your supplications an imitation of the abracadabra of the wizard! That is vain superstition and not acceptable supplication. Pray distinctly with all your wits about you to your God. Speak to Him. And hence it becomes needful that we should endeavor in prayer to realize the Presence of God. It shall be well to put it this way you have prayed well if you have spoken to God as a man speaks to his friend. If you are as sure that God is there as that you are there, and perhaps somewhat more sure. If you are in Him and He in you and if you talk to Him as to one whom you cannot see, but whom you can perceive better than by sight, you have prayed well. If you speak to Him as to one whom you cannot feel with your hands but can feel with all your nature with something better than fingers and hands perceiving that He is, and knowing that He is hearing you and will reward your diligent seeking that is praying before God. That is pleading before a living God, with One who feels and will be moved by what you feel, to One who speaks and will hearken to what you speak. You are to commune with One who is not like your fellow men, who may let you plead and remain like a block, unmoved by your pathetic requests. But to a living God, a tender God, sensitive to all the sensations of your soul. Oh, to come before the living and acting God! Not before a God lame and impotent. Nor before the new God, who is impersonal and dead ,but before the true God God in Christ Jesus! If we did but realize who He is to whom we speak God, very near to us in the person of the Only Begotten, who has taken our nature upon Himself what praying ours would be! And that is the right sort of praying. Oh, that the God of Truth may be able, in speaking to each of us, to speak concerning, “Your prayer and your supplication which you have prayed before Me”! Lord, help us to pass through the outer courts and to enter into Your inner court and speak with You! Lord, deliver us from staying in the words but bring us into the spirit of prayer bring us near Yourself. If there are any here that have never prayed, let their prayer at this time be to One who is close to them, ready to hear them. Do not ask, “What shall I say?” Say to God what you wish to say. What is your desire tonight? Would you be saved? Beg Him to save you. Would you be forgiven? Ask forgiveness. “The words,” you say, “tell me the words.” No, you need no words. If you have none, look, just look to Him. Let your heart think out its desires. There is music without words and there is prayer without words. The soul of prayer is being before God and desiring before God who hears without sounds and understands without expressions. Open your heart look to Him. And ask Him to read what you cannot read. Beg Him of His great mercy to give you not according to your own sense of your requirements but according to the riches of His mercy in Christ Jesus. You are praying before God when you have realized His Presence. The Lord does not require from you that you should express yourself in words. He reads what is there with an omniscient glance what is written on your heart. To know that He does so, and to plead in that spirit is prayer before God. May He by His Grace give each of us this privilege today. II. I will change the run of our thought for a little while to notice, with much earnestness, OUR GREAT DESIRE IN PRAYER. It is that which God said that He had given to Solomon. “I have heard your prayer and your supplication.” I have often had occasion to remark that the wise men of modern times whose principal characteristic is that they think so much of themselves and so very little of anybody else, tell us that prayer is an excellent exercise, good and comforting and useful. But they say that we are not to suppose that it has any effect upon God whatever. We enquire of them, “Would you have us go on praying after the information you have given?” “Oh, yes,” they say, “Oh yes, of course. It is a pious exercise, a proper and edifying thing. Go on praying but do not think that God hears.” Brothers and Sisters, it is evident that they think us idiots. Evidently they consider praying men to be born fools. If it is certain that prayer has no effect upon God, my Brothers and Sisters, I would just as soon whistle when I rise in the morning as pray. And I would as soon close my eyes at night in dumb silence as run over a set of ineffectual words. There could be no good in prayer if it should be proved that it never went beyond the room in which it was uttered. When it ceases to be accepted by the Lord and honored by His response, we shall abandon it. If there is neither hearing, nor answering, we shall have reduced ourselves to the level of the worshippers of Baal. And we have not come to that, yet. We are obliged to you wise men for your compliments. But we shall not follow your absurd advice! Your pretty praises of our devotion as a pleasing and instructive exercise are quite lost upon us, since they involve a covert insult. You may take back your compliments, if you please. For our opinion of your wisdom is almost equal to your opinion of ours. But, Brethren, what we desire in prayer is really to be heard. If I pray, I pray not to the winds, nor to the waves but to God. And if He does not hear me, I have lost my breath. The first thing the soul desires in prayer is an audience with God. If the Lord does not hear us, we have gained nothing. And what an honor it is, if you come to think of it, to have audience with God! The frail, feeble, undeserving creature is permitted to stand in the august Presence of the God of the whole earth and the Lord regards that poor creature as if there were nothing else for Him to observe and bends His ear and His heart to listen to that creature’s cry! It is necessary to a living prayer to feel that we are speaking to God and that God is hearing us. You notice, that generally in the Psalms David says very little about God’s answering. But he always speaks about God’s hearing and he asks that He would hear. That He should deign to hear us is quite enough quite enough from such a God as He is. If I can get my petition placed in His hands I am fully satisfied. If I can pour my desires into His ears and He has once observed them, all further fear is removed. Your heavenly Father knows that you have need of these things and you may rest perfectly content. For in coming into His Presence, you have done according to His command and therefore His promise holds good to you. The first thing wanted, then, is that the Lord should hear us. But we want more than that we want that He should accept. It were a painful thing to be permitted to speak to a great friend and then for him to stand austere and stern and say, “I have heard what you have to say. Go your way.” We ask not this of God. We beg Him kindly and graciously to accept our poor confessions, petitions, supplications and adorations. And if He does but look and smile if He does but say one word into our soul which implies, “I have accepted your prayer” what a joy it is! To have brought an offering which the Lord has accepted this is the sweetness and delight of supplication! Still, there is a third thing which we want, which God gave to Solomon and that was an answer. He asked the Lord to hallow the house and the Lord did hallow the house. And as to you and me in prayer, while there are some things which we must always pray for with a great deal of diffidence, evermore saying emphatically, “Not as I will but as You will” yet are there certain other gifts which we are encouraged to pray for with importunity, being resolved to have them. Those are spiritual blessings, Covenant blessings, distinctly promised and evidently necessary these we may ask for without any question, using a sacred importunity and refusing to let the angel go unless he blesses us. On matters promised by God in His Word we may come again and again knocking at the Lord’s door until He awakes and gives us the loaves that we seek for our hungry and fainting friend. Oh for more holy boldness! Oh for more assured confidence! We have need to believe that we have the petitions that we ask of Him. We must ask in faith, nothing wavering, or we may not expect to receive anything of the Lord. Oh, yes, we long to be heard and answered. And we cannot be satisfied to pray unless we perceive that prayer is effective in the courts above. That is our desire in prayer. III. This makes me mention, thirdly, OUR ASSURANCE or ANSWER TO PRAYER. Can we have an assurance that God has heard and answered prayer? Solomon had it. The Lord said unto him, “I have heard your prayer and your supplication, that you have made before Me.” Does the Lord ever say that to us? I think so. Let us consider how He does so. I think that He says it to us very often in our usual faith. I hope that I speak for many of you when I say that we constantly pray believingly. It is habitual with me to expect God to answer me. I go to Him very simply and ask for what I want. And if I did not have that which I humbly sought for, I should be greatly surprised. When I do get it, I reckon it as a matter of course for the Lord has promised to answer prayer and it is certain that He will keep His promise. I am speaking now about the daily mercies and the daily trials and the ordinary events of life in these matters God is sure to answer prayer. And our faith, in its ordinary operation, is, to our hearts, the voice of God, saying, “I have heard your prayer and your supplication.” But sometimes you require strong confidence. You have to solicit some extraordinary blessing. You get to a place like that to which Jacob came when common prayer was not sufficient. When Esau was coming to meet him with an armed force, he must have a night’s prayer he must gather up all his courage at Jabbok. He must wrestle with the angel and win the Divine blessing. At such times, it is a stronger faith than usual, brought into exercise, by necessity, which assures the soul of the blessing. “According to your faith be it unto you.” If we can trust God for that is the thing we shall have the thing we seek. Faith is not saying, “I know that I have it,” when you really have it not. That would be telling yourself a lie. Here is a man who says, “Believe that you are sanctified and you are in a moment sanctified.” But you are not. You may believe a lie in believing that and be, perhaps, less sanctified than you were before you believed it and ten times more proud and thus far more under the influence of Satan. To believe in God that He will sanctify me and that He is sanctifying me, is a very different thing from believing that I am already sanctified. I believe that God will supply my needs but I do not believe that I have got the Bank of England in my pocket. If I did believe it, I should not find it there when I put my hand to feel for it. Faith is not believing fanatically but believing the Truths of God. There is a wonderful difference between believing what your fancy says and believing what God has distinctly promised. Faith and fancy are two very different things. God keep us from the falsehood of folly and lead us into the Truth of God! I will believe anything, however monstrous it may appear, if God says it. I will believe nothing, however desirable, merely because my own fancy imagines it or because your heated brain suggests it. Strong faith often brings with it a conviction within the soul which nothing can shake. A conviction most sure, and yet most reasonable, since it is inspired by the Spirit of God who bears witness only to the truth and not to dreams. To the man’s inner consciousness it is as though he heard the voice of God, saying, “I have heard your prayer and your supplication.” Sometimes this comes in the form of a comfortable persuasion. Have you ever known what it is to leave off prayer when you are in the middle of it and say, “I am heard I am heard”? Have you not felt that you needed not to cry any longer, for you had gained your suit and must begin to praise, rather than continue to pray? When a man goes to a bank with a check and he gets the money, he does not stand loafing about the counter he goes off about his business. And oftentimes before God, he that is prepared to be a long time in prayer if it should be necessary, feels that he must be brief in petition and long in thanksgiving. He rises from his knees with the persuasion, “I need not ask any more I am heard.” And he goes about his business, to do something more needful and seasonable than praying. For it is always better to serve God in a pressing practical duty than it is to continue to pray when prayer has no longer any reasonableness in it, seeing that you are already heard. If God has given you the blessing, why ask for it any further? “The Lord says to Moses, Why do you cry unto Me? Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward.” And that going forward was a better thing than praying, now that praying had had its day. So there comes a comfortable assurance at times that it is even so, and you must go on your way rejoicing. This inward persuasion is no fanatical imagining, nor excitement of the brain but a work of the Holy Spirit which none can imitate and only the receiver can understand. The Lord also gives to His people a manifest preparation for the blessing. He prepares them to receive it. Their expectation is raised so that they begin to look out for the blessing and make room for it. And when it is so, you may be sure that it is coming. God never brought you to a well and put a bucket and rope in your way without intending to fill that bucket when you let it down. When the thirsty soil has opened all its mouths to drink in the rain of Heaven, that rain always comes. When the ears of wheat are ready for the sun to ripen them, the heat of harvest is near. When a man of God so looks for the wind of the Spirit that he spreads the sails of hope, the breeze is sure to blow. Brothers and Sisters, it is want of preparation in you that hinders the blessing. “He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.” “You are not straitened in us but you are straitened in your own heart.” But when the Lord has given you an evident preparation for the blessing, the blessing is already on the way, the shadow of it is resting upon you. In that preparation the Lord virtually says “I have heard your prayer and your supplication.” Actual observation also breeds in us a solid confidence that our suit is succeeding. Sometimes God gives us an assurance that He has heard our prayer when He makes us look back and observe the past. How He has answered us! He changes not. He hears us still. O Sirs, I have no patience with those who say that God does not hear prayer for my daily experience proves them wrong. I would not lie even under the notion of honoring God. But I will speak what I know. Throughout life it has been my habit to wait upon God about many things and especially about extraordinary necessities which have arisen out of the demands of the great institutions committed to me. I shall not stay to tell the stories of the Lord’s supplies in answer to prayer. Some of you know them in a measure. But in very truth the Lord has heard my prayers as distinctly as if He had rent the heavens and put out His right hand filled with good. Many of you could bear similar witness, could you not? The fact that the Lord has heard us in the past speaks in our souls and fills us with the assurance that He will hear us again. Memory emphasizes the voice of the Lord, which says, “I have heard your prayer. I have heard your supplication, therefore trust Me with all your heart. Have I not always heard your prayer? When did I refuse you? “My Beloved One, when did I reject you? Have I not always hearkened to you? In the hour of your distress, have I not delivered you? In the times of your need, have I not supplied you? I have heard your prayer. Go in peace. Weep no more. Let not your soul be troubled. All is well, for I am on the Throne of Grace and My face is towards you.” IV. Now I have come to the end of what I have to say, with this one sole exception. Let me speak of OUR SPECIAL APPLICATION OF PRAYER. In the case of Solomon, prayer turned in one direction and in that direction I want to turn now. You learn what Solomon’s prayer was when you hear how God fulfilled it. God said to him, “I have hallowed this house which you have built and put My name there forever and My eyes and My heart shall be there perpetually.” Last night the members of this Church met in their annual Church Meeting* and we had great joy and thankfulness for all the mercy which God has made to pass before us. I have just completed thirty-three years of ministry here a third of a century with unbroken blessing. We can say that all these years have passed with no division and no strife among us with nothing but perpetual benedictions from the Lord God of our salvation. Blessed be His name! Our prayer is again that the Lord Himself would hallow this house which we have built. We ask this in no superstitious way. Bricks and mortar and iron and stone are nothing to us. The qualities of holiness do not adhere to material substances but to hearts and to souls and acts. Yet we ask our Lord to hallow this Tabernacle with His Presence still more and more. If that were gone, Ichabod would be our bitter cry! The glory would indeed have departed. We want our Lord to hallow it by His favorable regard that when we worship He will accept our worship and hear our prayers and our praises. We want Him to hallow it by His working among us in many more conversions. It was a joyous time to me when I saw the enquirer come who was number ten thousand that is long ago and we have reached a far higher number now but all is the work of our gracious God. We shall never bring in another true convert unless we have God’s Presence! O Lord Jesus, we would constrain You saying, “Abide with us.” The Lord bless His people in this House of Prayer in the breaking of bread, in the ordinance of Baptism, in the proclamation of the Gospel and in all their gatherings together. O Lord, we pray You hallow this house. We pray it from our inmost souls. We that have found our services to be hallowed to You in days that are past, cannot bear the idea of failure and famine in the future. May the Lord say to us tonight, “I have hallowed this house which you have built.” We want that He should hallow it, next, in this way “to put My name there forever.” “Forever.” As long as there shall be any such house, or need of such a house, may His name be here. My venerable predecessor, Dr. Rippon, whom I never saw, I have been informed was likely to pray for a certain successor of his whom he seemed always to have in his mind’s thoughts. He frequently prayed for the man whom the Lord would send among the people of his care after his own decease. In a letter that I have seen, which he wrote to a friend, I cannot but somehow see myself. As in the glimmer of the firelight he saw the person who would follow him and carry on his work. After sixty years of service in this Church, as the old man grew older, he used to be praying about this successor more and more. I think that I may begin to pray after his example, that as long as there shall be the need for a House of God, the name of God may be honored in this Tabernacle and may faithful men proclaim His salvation in the power of the Holy Spirit. Shall there stand here one day a man that denies the Deity of my Lord? God forbid! [“Amen.”] Shall there be found here one that shall preach modern thought and give up the old, old Gospel? God forbid! [“Amen.”] Let the house be wrapped in flames and every ash be blown away by the winds sooner than any shall preach from this pulpit any other Gospel than that you have received. [“Amen.” “Amen.”] I thank you for those loud Amens. May God Himself say, Amen. May the name of our Covenant God be set here forever and no other name. And then, Solomon prayed also and God heard him, that the eyes of the Lord might be there. That was Solomon’s prayer and God greatly improved upon it, for He said that His eyes and His heart should be there perpetually. Thus the Lord hears our prayers in a better sense than that in which we offer them. We pray that His eyes may be upon us, and He adds, “It shall be so and with My eyes, My heart also shall be there.” Oh, that the eyes of the Lord might be upon this house and upon this Church, to watch over it, to keep it from all harm! But may His heart also be with us to fill us with His Divine life and love and to make us know His inner self! Oh for the love of God to be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit! May we know that God’s feelings of affection and delight are towards us! This shall be our joy unspeakable. Now, Brothers and Sisters who happen to be worshipping with us on this occasion but are not members with us, I entreat you kindly to pray for this house and this Church. I would, in return, pray for your place of worship and for the Church to which you belong. You will, however, readily forgive us if we think, just now, after our thirty-three years of this particular Church and its interests. We must praise the Lord for all His mercy towards us. Grace personally received must be personally acknowledged. You see, we are at home and we must think of our own home. I can truly sing

“Here my best friends, my kindred dwell, Here God my Savior reigns.”

“I dwell among my own people,” said the Shunammite. And there is no joy like it for a Christian minister and a Christian Church member to feel that he dwells among his own people and is happy with them. To be driven from Church to Church, as some are, is a wretched business. To be like others, changing their views as often as the moon happy nowhere, miserable everywhere, agreeing with nobody, not even with themselves is a poor business. Persons of that kind, I hope, will not join this Church just yet, or, if they do, may the Lord convert them as they come in. As for us, we love each other and our united prayer is that the eyes and the heart of God may be with us and all His people perpetually. The Lord bless you, dear Friends, for Christ’s sake! Amen.

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

Solomon was now at the height of his glory, a vivid type of a greater than Solomon. And it is only when we see that he really does thus prefigure the Lord Jesus as King that we can understand the importance that God attaches to the history of such as David in one light and Solomon in another. David as the warrior-king who puts down the enemies actively, Solomon as the man of peace who will reign over the subjugated nations and kingdoms, more particularly Israel; but in point of fact, at the same time, the glorious Son of man that will have all kingdoms and nations and tribes and tongues then. Now I am persuaded that every one's faith has something lacking who does not leave room for this glorious future. I do not mean now in the smallest degree as a question of one's soul with God, but I am speaking of the intelligence of a Christian man. And I repeat, that he who does not look for the kingdom of God to be established by and by in this world has neither a key to the Bible nor, in point of fact, can he understand why God permits the present confusion. There is nothing more likely to fill the soul with perplexity than leaving out the future. Bring it in and we can understand why God exercises such amazing forbearance. The present is but a revolutionary time, and so it has been for ages, marked by the solemn fact that even the very people of God are the most dispersed of all nations upon the earth. I speak, of course, of Israel now, and I say that if there be a people that are no people, Israel is the one that comes up before our view. The devil may have a kind of imitation of it in some other races that are scattered over the ends of the earth, but then the man that could confound Israelites with, for instance, the Egyptians would be evidently doing the greatest injustice to one of the most remarkable people even as a race, as a nation, that has ever lived upon the earth. The other is only a kind of Satanic imitation of it; but no man can wisely despise Israel, even as a man. Still more, when our hearts take in the real truth of God and remember that God Himself in the person of His own Son deigned to become an Israelite, was in truth the Messiah, the Anointed, was the born King of the Jews. He who takes this in can understand the great place that Israel has in the mind of God, and that it is a proof of very little faith and of great occupation about ourselves when we do not relish what God has given us about His ancient people.

I grant you that it is a poor thing for the soul to be occupied with that in the first place, and it is, therefore, of great consequence that as now it is no question of Israel, but of Christ. And if then of Christ, of Christ as a Saviour, and further as the Head of the church. We are called now to know Him as a Saviour, next as members of His body to know what the Head of the body is, and what is involved in these relationships both of His to us and of ours to Him. But having the truth as to these, the more intimate and of the deepest personal importance to us, the question is whether our souls are not to be exercised on that which God has given us here, and what is God's thought, God's lesson, God's intention, for our souls in it.

This I shall endeavour to gather, not by forcing it to speak Christian language, not by what I may call "gospelling" the different parts of Scripture, which is really very often a perversion; not even by taking profitable hints from it that are most just and true and concern the grand living principles of divine truth, most important as all these are. But still there is another thing that we ought all with jealousy to care for, and that is to seek the real mind of God what is intended by the scripture that comes before us. This leaves perfect freedom for every other application, but we ought to have first and foremost what God intends us to understand by His word. The time will come when we shall require to know how far any application is just. Because, needless to say, the divine purpose in the scripture necessarily has the first place for him that respects God, and who is not uneasy and anxious, and who is not coming to scripture always asking, "Is there anything about me here?" or, "Is there anything for me?" The great point is this, Is there anything about Christ there, and what is it that God is teaching us about Christ there? I am supposing now that the soul's want has been already met.

What then is it that God is showing us here? Why, clearly He is bringing once more the man of peace, Solomon, the type of Christ Himself when reigning in peaceful glory. But, alas! it was not Christ yet; it was only a shadow and not the substance, and the consequence is that although God has written the scripture very especially to keep up the type and to exclude what would be inconsistent with it, nevertheless, we have the truth; and God intimates here the danger that was before Solomon and his family. He intimates the conditional ground which he must take until Christ brought in sovereign, unconditional grace. It is impossible not to speak in the way of condition except in view of Christ, of Christ personally. It is there alone that we get the full mind of God and heart of God, and whenever that is the case it is no question of conditions but of perfect love that works for His own name's sake, and that can do it righteously through the Lord Jesus. But this gives me reason to speak of a very important principle that I shall have many opportunities of illustrating; what might seem a very strange thing in setting up the kingdom in Israel. Of all things in Israel there was nothing that illustrated the principle of one master so much as the king. Even the high priest did not in the same way, though he also did in another form. But the king determined the lot of the people in this way: if the king went right there was a ground for God's blessing the people, simply and solely for that very reason. On the other hand, if the king went wrong judgment fell upon the people. Alas! as we know, a king might go right, and it did not follow that the people would; if the king went wrong, the people were sure to, follow. Such is the inevitable history of man now. Well, this principle would seem very strange, and always does appear so till we see Christ. Then how blessed! God always meant to make Christ, and Christ alone, the ground of blessing. For any other for any of the children of Adam to be the pillar, so to speak, on which the blessing should repose, would be a most precarious principle. We know well what Adam's sons are. We ought to know by ourselves, but when we see God looking onward to the Second man the last Adam then we understand the principle.

Well now, it is for this reason that, whether you look at David or Solomon, they have a very peculiar place as being personal types of the Lord Jesus as King. In a way, that is not true of others. Others might be in part, but they far more fully; but the principle is most true of the kingdom in Israel. That is, that there was one person now on whom depended the blessing of the people, or, alas! who involved the people in his own ruin, and this is the great principle of the kingdom of Israel. Miserable! till we come to Christ. How blessed! when Christ comes to reign. Then all the blessing of all the world hangs upon that one Man, and that one Man will make it all good. Such is God's intention, and He will never give it up. Now anyone who takes this in has a wholly different view from the history of the world from the gloom that must settle upon any man's heart that looks upon the earth apart from Christ. That God should have aught to say to such a world, that God should take an interest in it, that God should own such a state of things how difficult otherwise to understand! The more you know of God, and the more you know of man, the more the wonder increases. But when we see that all is merely suffered till that one Man come, God meanwhile working out other purposes, as we know now, in Christianity, that as far as regards the earth and man upon it, it is all in view of Christ's coming again, and coming to reign; that is, coming to take the world into His own hands in the way of power not merely to work in it by grace, but to take the reins of the world under His government, banishing him who is the fertile source of all the difficulty and contention and rebellion against God, that has filled it now, and indeed ever since sin came into it the difficulty is solved.

Well then, in this second appearing of the Lord to Solomon, we have what, to a spiritual mind, would at once show the danger, nay, the sad result, the utter failure, that was to come in. Nevertheless, there was great comfort in it in the words of the Lord for these are most true that His eyes and His heart shall be there perpetually; and, further, that that family, and that family alone, was to furnish an unbroken line till the fulness of the blessing of God be made good in this world. David's family is the only one that has that honour, for God preserved, as you know, the genealogical links until Messiah came; and after the Lord Jesus was born, before that generation passed away, Israel was dispersed. Where are they now? And where are the proofs now? All hangs upon Christ. But God took care that, till Shiloh came, there should be this maintaining of a man of David's house; and then, when the Lord Jesus was put to death, and it seemed as if all was gone, on the contrary, rising from the dead the work was complete. There was no need of any further line which was in the power of an endless life even as king, even in His kingdom. For David, according to Paul's gospel, must be raised from the dead, and so He is, and, consequently, He is brought in as unchanging. We can understand, therefore, that by virtue of Christ, the eyes and heart of God rest there. There may be nothing to show for it now. Of all places in the earth, the land of Palestine and Jerusalem may outwardly seem to be given up to be the prey of Satan. Nowhere has he more manifestly triumphed. Nevertheless, all is made good, and God will prove it, and prove it shortly. The truth is, the foundation is laid; nay, more than that, not merely the foundation laid, but the Person is in the glorious state in which He is to reign. He is risen from the dead, He is glorified, He is only waiting for the moment waiting, as it is said, to judge the quick and the dead, but, waiting, also, to reign.

This then is what lies underneath the type of Solomon. But as to himself we see that in the very next chapter (1 Kings 10:1-29), although there was still the keeping up of honour, and the testimony to his wisdom in the queen of Sheba's coming up, and all her munificent homage to the wisest king that God had ever raised up among men nevertheless, even then failure shows itself. The conditions of God are soon broken by man. "Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen; and he had a thousand and four hundred chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen." "And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt." "And a chariot came up and went out of Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver" (1 Kings 10:28-29). Was this obedience? Was this the king after God's own heart? Had He not expressly warned His king to beware of it? Had He not cautioned him against the accumulation of wealth, for he had had wealth of his own without seeking? God had ensured him that, but he sought it, he valued himself upon it, he laid no small burdens upon his people to accumulate wealth for the king; and at the same time he shows his dependence upon the Gentiles. He goes down to Egypt for horses, for that which would add to royal splendour, and would be an enticement to his sons, if not to himself, to seek conquest not according to the mind of God.

In short, whatever might be the object, it was a transgression of the distinct and direct word of the Lord, as we all know, given in the Book of Deuteronomy, where God had foreseen these dangers. But there was another danger too (1 Kings 11:1-43), and a deeper one. "But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites." What! The wisest king the wisest king so to prove his total ruin in the very thing where, least of all, it became him! So it is with the sons of Adam. You will always find that in the very point in which you most pride yourself you most fail. In that which it might seem to be least possible, the moment your eye is off the Lord, in that particular you will break down. Adam, it would not have been thought, would so soon have forgotten his place of headship Adam, to whom the Lord spoke especially. I do not say to the exclusion of his wife. Far from it. For indeed she was united with him in it. But undoubtedly he was the one who ought to have guided the wife, and not the wife her husband, and there was the first failure at the very beginning. But had not Solomon known that? Had he not heard of it? How had he profited? this man with his seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines! And so we find that his wives turned away his heart. "For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with Jehovah his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. And Solomon did evil in the sight of Jehovah, and went not fully after Jehovah, as did David his father. Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods. And Jehovah was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from Jehovah God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice" (1 Kings 11:4-9).

The greater the privilege and the higher the honour, the deeper the shame. This was, I will not say the sad end of Solomon, but undoubtedly the rapid decline and fall of the man. This is the sad character that Scripture attaches to him, that in his old age he listened to the follies of these strange women, and, accordingly, God begins to chastise, not merely when Solomon was taken, but in his lifetime. And indeed there is no happier intimation of Scripture that I know of about Solomon. For while God deigns to give us his estimate of the elders that walked by faith, or that in some way signalized their faith, Solomon is not one. Nevertheless, that God did put especial honour upon that son of David, who can doubt? Who inspired him to give us some of the most weighty portions of God's word? And by whom was he given this signal wisdom of which Scripture speaks so much, and indeed which he proved so truly? But, nevertheless, it is written for our wisdom, for our learning, for our warning, that we should beware of slipping in the very thing which God signalizes. There is no strength in wisdom or in aught else. Our strength is only in the Lord, and the only way to make it good is in dependence upon Him. It was not so with Solomon. He rested in the fruits that God had given him. He yielded to the enjoyment of what came from God, but what was turned aside from the living source. All was ruined, and so Jehovah, as we are told, stirred up Hadad the Edomite. He was one that when David was in Edom, and Joab was there, had been concealed and kept.

"Jehovah stirred up an adversary unto Solomon, Hadad the Edomite: he was of the king's seed in Edom. For it came to pass, when David was in Edom, and Joab the captain of the host was gone up to bury the slain, after he had smitten every male in Edom (for six months did Joab remain there with all Israel, until he had cut off every male in Edom), that Hadad fled, he and certain Edomites of his father's servants with him, to go into Egypt; Hadad being yet a little child" (vers. 14-17). Now he comes forward. God is wise, and that young prince was kept to be a sting to king Solomon. But this is a little comfort to us, and indeed, I may say, almost the only comfort that we have in the history that is given us of king Solomon that God chastised him. He chastised him, not merely allowed the fruit of his evil, the results of his folly, to appear in his family, but chastised himself in his own lifetime. This is His way with His own people, and indeed in some cases it is almost the only hope that you have that a person is a child of God, namely, that God does not allow the evil to pass, but deals with it now in this world. Those that God passes over in spite of evil are persons who are evidently waiting to be condemned with the world, but those who, being guilty, are dealt with now are objects of God's fatherly care. He is dealing with them, rebuking them, judging them, but after all, they are chastened that they should not be condemned with the world. Solomon, at any rate, most clearly comes under the chastening of the Lord. As the Lord had said to his father and implied to Solomon himself, He would not take His mercy from him, but He should chastise him with stripes, and this He does. But it is Solomon. It is not merely the house generally, the family generally, or their offspring, but Solomon himself.

Hadad then is one means of putting the wise king to great uneasiness. God made him a source of trouble to Solomon, for when Hadad heard in Egypt that David slept with his fathers he comes forward. But now it is particularly mentioned. God does not say a word about that until Solomon's failure. Then Hadad comes forward in a most decided and distinct way to be a scourge for the guilty king. But he was not the only one. "God stirred him up another adversary, Rezon the son of Eliadah, which fled from his lord Hadadezer king of Zobah: and he gathered men unto him, and became captain over a band, when David slew them of Zobah: and they went to Damascus, and dwelt therein, and reigned in Damascus. And he was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon, beside the mischief that Hadad did: and he abhorred Israel, and reigned over Syria."

I do not mean that the mischievousness of either Hadad or of Rezon was only when Solomon became an idolater, but I do draw attention to the fact that the Holy Ghost reserves the account of the vexation they caused the king till then. It is put by the Spirit Himself as a direct chastening of his idolatry. And these were, not the only ones. They were external. Solomon might say, "Well, we cannot expect anything better. They have private grudges, or national grudges, against our family." But "Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, an Ephrathite," was no foreigner, nor was it a question of avenging the supposed wrongs that were done to his family or his race. Not so; he was "Solomon's servant whose mother's name was Zeruah, a widow woman, even he lifted up his hand against the king. And this was the cause that he lifted up his hand against the king; Solomon built Millo, and repaired the breaches of the city of David his father. And the man Jeroboam was a mighty man of valour: and Solomon seeing the young man that he was industrious, he made him ruler over all the charge of the house of Joseph. And it came to pass at that time when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, that the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him in the way; and he had clad himself with a new garment; and they, two were alone in the field; And Ahijah caught the new garment that was on him, and rent it in twelve pieces; and he said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces: for thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, Behold I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee."

What an announcement ten out of the twelve tribes to Jeroboam, the servant. "But he shall have one tribe," for so God calls it, "for my servant David's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel; because that they have forsaken me, and have worshipped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon, and have not walked in my ways, to do that which is right in mine eyes, and to keep my statutes and my judgments, as did David his father. Howbeit I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand; but I will make him prince all the days of his life for David my servant's sake, whom I chose, because he kept my commandments and my statutes. But I will take the kingdom out of his son's hand, and will give it unto thee, even ten tribes. And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David my servant may have a light alway before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my name there."

What mercy! "a light always." Reduced greatly reduced in the extent and glory of the kingdom, but with this most marked difference, compared with the ten tribes the much larger part that passed to the other they would shift their loads from time to time, and after having continual changes in the family that governed they had one after another rising up. If it was a rebellious servant that it began with, it would not end with him, but many a rebellious servant would rise up against the king of Israel, and so the dynasty would be changed over and over and over again. Not so with Judah. Even though reduced to what God calls but one tribe, in order to put in the strongest possible way this utter diminution of their glory, nevertheless there the light shall be always. Such was the merciful, but at the same time, most righteous dealing of the Jehovah God of Israel.

And soon, too, the word takes effect. Solomon dies. Rehoboam comes and is himself the witness of the truth of his father's word that the father might heap up riches without end to leave to a son, and who knows but what he will be a fool? And Rehoboam was a fool in the strictest sense of the word. I do not of course mean by that mere idiocy, for such are a matter of compassion; but there are many fools that are fools in a very much more culpable sense than idiots. They are those persons who have sense enough and ought to use it aright, but persons who pervert whatever they have, not only to their own mischief, but to the trouble of those who ought most of all to be the objects of their care; for there is no king that rightly governs unless he holds his kingdom from the Lord, and more particularly a king of Israel, who had to do with Jehovah's people.

And this was the thing that filled David's heart spite of many a fault in him. He felt that it was God's people that was entrusted to him, and this alone was at the bottom of his dependence upon God. For who was he? He needed God who was sufficient for such a thing. God alone could guide in the keeping of His people. But Rehoboam was the foolish son of the wise father, but of a wise father whose last days were clouded with darkness and with guilt, and who now is to reap bitter results in his family and is only spared by the grace of God from utter destruction. Rehoboam then, it is said, reigned in his father's stead. "And Rehoboam went to Shechem: for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king." The very first word shows the state of the king and the state of the people. Why to Shechem? What brought them there? What business had they there? Why not come to Jerusalem? When David was coming to the throne the tribes of Israel came to Hebron because Hebron was where the king lived. It was the king's chief city, where he had reigned before he reigned in Jerusalem, and the people came, as became them, to the king. Rehoboam heard that the foundations were being loosened and about to be destroyed for the king goes to Shechem. It was there that the people chose to go, and there the king perforce follows. He was a fool; he did not understand how to reign; he did not own his place from God.

"He went to Shechem, for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king." That is the reason of it. It was not that God had made Shechem the centre or the right place for king or people, but evidently the people chose to go there, and Rehoboam followed them, and that was the way in which his reign began. It was an ominous beginning, but it was a beginning remarkably suited to the character of Rehoboam. Where Rehoboam ought to have been firm he was loose, and where he ought to have been yielding he was obstinate; and these two things unfit any man to govern, for the grand secret of governing well is always knowing when to be firm and when to yield, and to do so in the fear of God with a perfect certainty of what is a divine principle, and there to be as firm as a rock; and to know, on the other hand, what is merely an indifferent thing, and there to be as yielding as possible.

Now it was not so with Rehoboam. "He went to Shechem, for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king." There was not now an association of divine grace, or truth, or purpose, or any other thing at Shechem; it was merely that Israel went there and he followed; he went there too. "And it came to pass, when Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who was yet in Egypt, heard of it (for he was fled from the presence of king Solomon, and Jeroboam dwelt in Egypt), that they sent and called him. And Jeroboam and all the congregation of Israel came, and spake unto Rehoboam, saying, Thy father made our yoke grievous "You see the rebellious spirit from the very beginning. It is now in their language, as it was in their act before. "Now therefore, make thou the grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee. And he said unto them, Depart yet for three days, then come again to me. And the people departed. And king Rehoboam consulted with the old men, that stood before Solomon his father while he yet lived, and said, How do ye advise that I may answer this people? And they spake unto him, saying, If thou wilt be a servant unto this people this day, and wilt serve them, and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they will be thy servants for ever."

It was not the noblest ground it is true. It was not the ground that would have left him in both liberty and responsibility. That would be the true ground I need not tell you, beloved brethren, and it ought to have been the ground if he would be a servant of Jehovah if he would serve Jehovah in watching over the best interests of Jehovah's people. But said they according to their measure, "If thou wilt be a servant unto this people this day, and wilt serve them and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they will be thy servants for ever." It was prudence, it was good policy. I could not say there was faith in it but there was good policy in it, as far as that went. "But he forsook the counsel of the old men, which they had given him, and consulted with the young men that were grown up with him, which stood before him. And he said unto them, What counsel give ye that we may answer this people, who have spoken to me, saying, Make the yoke which thy father did put upon us lighter? And the young men that were grown up with him spake unto him, saying, Thus shalt thou speak unto this people that spake unto thee, saying, Thy father made our yoke heavy, but make thou it lighter unto us; thus shalt thou say unto them, My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins. And now whereas my father did lade you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke: my father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions."

His days were numbered the days of the kingdom of Rehoboam. "So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day." He was in the plot, he was the one that well knew what the prophecy was, and now there was an opportunity of taking advantage of it. This is not the only connection you will find of Rehoboam with Shechem. "And the king answered the people roughly, and forsook the old men's counsel that they gave him; And spake to them after the counsel of the young men, saying, My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke: my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. Wherefore the king hearkened not unto the people; for the cause was from Jehovah, that he might perform his saying, which Jehovah spake by Ahijah the Shilonite unto Jeroboam the son of Nebat." Did that excuse Jeroboam? This is a very important principle that you will find constantly in the word of God. A prophecy is in no way a sanction of what is predicted. Prophecy takes in the most abominable acts that have ever been done by the proud, corrupt, or murderous, will of man.

Prophecy therefore is in no wise a sanction of what is predicted, but nevertheless to a crafty and ambitious man as Jeroboam was, it gave the hint, and it gave him confidence to go on according to what was in his own heart. He therefore soon gives the word. "So when all Israel saw that the king hearkened not unto them, the people answered the king, saying, What portion have we in David? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: to your tents, O Israel: now see to thine own house, David. So Israel departed unto their tents. But as for the children of Israel which dwelt in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them, Then king Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was over the tribute." But this only became the overt occasion for the rebellion to display itself. "And all Israel stoned him with stones, that he died. Therefore king Rehoboam made speed to get him up to his chariot, to flee to Jerusalem. So Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day." And that rebellion was never healed. Alas we shall find greater abominations than this, but thus the bitter fruits of evil were beginning to show themselves; and he that had sown the wind must reap the whirlwind.

"And it came to pass, when all Israel heard that Jeroboam was come again, that they sent and called him unto the congregation, and made him king over all Israel: there was none that followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah only."

Rehoboam wants to fight. It was in vain. God had given away ten parts out of the kingdom and God would not sanction that the man who is himself guilty should fight even against the guilty. God had not given them a king of the house of David in order that they might fight against Israel. "Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren the children of Israel: return every man to his house; for this thing is from me. They harkened therefore to the word of Jehovah and returned to depart, according to the word of Jehovah."

And what does Jeroboam? In the 25th verse we are told that he built Shechem. That was the place that he made to be his central spot. "Jeroboam built Shechem in mount Ephraim, and dwelt therein: and went out from thence, and built Penuel." But Jeroboam considers.

"Jeroboam said in heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David. If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of Jehovah at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah." He was afraid that if he allowed his subjects to go up to Jerusalem they would bethink themselves of their old king bethink themselves of the grand purposes of God connected with Jerusalem What does he do then? He devises a religion out of his own head. "Whereupon the king took counsel and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt."

He put it upon the ground of bringing religion to their doors, of helping his people to a religion that would not be too costly or too difficult, in fact, was only seeking to make religion subserve his policy. Accordingly, he did this knowing well that it is impossible for a kingdom more particularly Israel God's people to be strong in the earth, where there is not the owning of God where there is not the owning of God blended with the government so that there should not be two contrary authorities or, possibly, contrary authorities in the kingdom. For in fact the stronger of the two for the conscience is religion and not civil obedience.

In order therefore to confirm the strength of his people, he makes the religion to be the religion of the kingdom. That is, he makes both the polity and the religion to flow from the same head the same will and for the same great ends of consolidating his authority. Hence therefore he thinks of religion. And what does he go to? Not the blotting out of Jehovah: that was not the form that it took; but the incorporating of the most ancient religious associations which he could think of and which would suit his purpose. And he goes to a very great antiquity not the antiquity, it is true, of that which God had given, but an antiquity that immediately followed; not the antiquity of the tables of stone, or the statutes and judgments of Israel either, but the antiquity of the golden calves. This is what he bethought himself of. "And he set the one in Beth-el, and the other put he in Dan. And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan. And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi."

The reason of Dan being the one that was chiefly cultivated was this: it was at the greatest distance from Jerusalem. Bethel was rather too near. A dozen miles or so might have exposed them no doubt, as he would have thought, to the temptation of Jerusalem, so Dan was the one. Although there were the two, Dan was the one that was chiefly courted. But he was not satisfied with this. He made a house of high places in imitation of the temple, and he made priests of the lowest of the people which were not of the sons of Levi.

But further, "Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Beth-el, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made; and he placed in Beth-el the priests of the high places which he had made. So he offered upon the altar." For why not, Jeroboam? Solomon had done so. "So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Beth-el, the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which," as Scripture says so graphically, "he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel; and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense" (1 Kings 12:32-33).

But God was not wanting to give a testimony even to this wicked king (1 Kings 13:1-34). "And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of Jehovah unto Beth-el: and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. And he cried against the altar in the word of Jehovah, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith Jehovah; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee" the grand vindication of God against the wicked religion of Jeroboam! "And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign which Jehovah hath spoken." That prophecy might await its accomplishment in due time, but there is a present sign given, as God constantly does a present pledge of a future accomplishment. "Behold the altar shall be rent and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out." The moment Jeroboam hears this he wants the man arrested. He puts forth his hand from the altar, saying, "Lay hold of him," but the power of God was with the word of God. "And his hand, which he put forth against him, dried up, so that he could not pull it in again to him. The altar also was rent, and the ashes poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of Jehovah. And the king answered and said unto the man of God, Intreat now the face of Jehovah thy God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored me again."

Thus it is not only that we find the chastening of God's people for their good, but the punishment of the wicked, at any rate, for their warning to break down their proud will; and so it was with Jeroboam. "The man of God besought Jehovah and the king's hand was restored to him again, and became as it was before"; but it left the king as he was before. There was no bending of his heart to the Lord. Nevertheless the king could not but be civil, and so he says to the man of God, "Come home with me and refresh thyself, and I will give thee a reward."

This brings out a principle of the deepest moment for you and for me, beloved friends. "And the man of God said unto the king, If thou wilt give me half thine house, I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread nor drink water in this place: for so was it charged me by the word of Jehovah, saying, Eat no bread, nor drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou camest." And no wonder. Here was Jehovah slighted. Where? Among the Gentiles? That were no wonder. Among His own people direct apostasy from the Lord God of Israel. Here was a man that went forth in the strength of the word of the Lord. Absolute separation was therefore enjoined, and eating and drinking in all ages have been most justly regarded as the sign of fellowship. It may be as in the most solemn way fellowship between God's people and the Lord Himself at His own table; but even in other lesser ways eating and drinking are not so slight as man supposes. "With such an one no not to eat." Who? A man that is called a brother. If an unbeliever bid you, even supposing the unbeliever might be the worst man in the world, you are free to go, provided you believe that God has a mission for you an object. Supposing it was the man's soul nothing more important in its way you are free to go to the very worst on the face of the earth if you can serve God by going. You had better be sure of that first. But there is another thing, and that is, suppose a man that is called a brother is living in wickedness, "with such an one no not to eat." This does not mean the Lord's table; it means the common ordinary table. It means that there is not to be a sign of such fellowship as this fellowship in ordinary life because one of the most important means of dealing with the conscience of one that is called a brother is not merely separation from him at the table of the Lord, but it is intended to govern all one's ordinary social life with him. Not with the world; there is no greater folly than putting the world under discipline; but there is nothing more important in the church of God than walking in holy discipline, not merely at the table of the Lord, but at all other times.

I know that the world makes light of this, and counts it extremely uncharitable; and I am aware, too, that it has been so abominably perverted by popery that one can understand why most Protestants are rather alarmed at anything that is so close and trenchant; but nevertheless it does not become those that value the word of the Lord to shrink from the danger, and I think that there cannot be a doubt that what I am saying is correct as to the 5th of the 1st Corinthians. I know that some apply it to the Lord's table. I will just give one or two reasons that are decisive. First, there would be no sense in speaking of a man that is called a brother only; no sense in saying that he is not a man of the world because there could not be a question about eating the Lord's Supper with him. The question might arise with a brother, no doubt. But in speaking of an erring Christian "no not to eat" means that fellowship is not to take place in so little a thing as to eat. "Not so much as to eat," meaning that it was a very small thing, and so it is a small thing to take an ordinary meal. Who could suppose the Holy Ghost treating the Lord's Supper as a very little thing? Why there is nothing of more importance on earth, so that I am perfectly persuaded "no not to eat" means so small a thing as to eat, which at once shows that the meaning is in no way the Lord's Supper. The Spirit of God never could treat that as a small matter. No, it means an ordinary meal.

I am not now speaking of relatives, because that modifies the thing. Supposing, for instance, a Christian person had a heathen father or mother. Well he is bound to show them reverence, even though they were heathens; and so with other relationships in life. Take, for instance, the wife of a man who perhaps was a despiser of the name of the Lord. She must behave properly as a wife. She is not absolved from that relationship. She is in it. Now that she is in it she is bound to glorify God in it. But where the scripture speaks so peremptorily as I have been now describing, it is where there is freedom. This is jealousy for the Lord that we should not err in an act that might seem open to us, because it was a slight one. It is jealousy that we might not forget the glory of the Lord in seeking also to arouse the conscience of him who evidently has fallen into such grievous sin.

So, then, the man of God was put upon this as the point of honour for a man of faith. He was not to eat bread or drink water, or even to go the way he came. He was evidently to pass through the land, not to be as one that was even repeating his footprints in the path which he had trodden before, but he was to go through it as one that had a mission to perform, and to have done with it. This was God's purpose in it. It was a most marked and solemn token, too, because it was meant to be a testimony, and therefore he was not to repeat it merely to the same persons who had seen it, but it was that others should see it too. This man of God was to pass through the land that was now apostate. And this, beloved friends, is of very great moment to us to bear in mind, as we have to do now with a most guilty state of Christendom. A very large part of Christendom is in a state of idolatry. Perhaps we do not see so much of it in these lands, yet it is increasing habitually, and it takes the shape of apostasy more particularly where there are Protestants; where those that came out of idolatry are going back to it in any form. It may begin in very trifling matters; it may show itself in little ornaments about the person, but what Satan means is not ornament but idolatry, and what Satan will accomplish by it is idolatry, and it is a very small thing which scripture shows most clearly that both the Jews, who are, apparently, the greatest enemies of idolatry in the world, and Christendom, who ought to have been altogether above idolatry, will go straight back into downright idolatry. Scripture is perfectly plain as to this, so the Lord told the Jews that the unclean spirit should return. That means the spirit of idolatry; and to return not as he formerly was alone but return with seven other spirits worse than himself. Antichristianism the worship of a man as God will accompany the idolatry of the last days, and this in Israel. And neither more nor less than this is what is taught in the 2nd Epistle to the Thessalonians as to Christendom. For what is the meaning of apostasy, and what is the meaning of the man of sin that is to set himself up, and that is to be worshipped? Not so is it with the revelation which strongly speaks of their worshipping gods of gold and silver and brass that could not see and hear and so on. This is not the Jews only, but Gentiles also, and Gentiles that once bore the name of Christ and are so much the worse for that.

But although these are the extremer things, there are other things now, for this is what we are called upon as Christians. The world itself will see when things come out so plainly, though there will be no power to resist, for all the motives of man and all the prosperity of men and all the countenance of the world will depend upon persons acquiescing, and men will not endure the dissent from it, and those that give a testimony will be intolerable. And, therefore, beloved friends, it is now our place to judge these things (that will be) in their principles not merely in the open result that will be by and bye. But there is the working now of what will lead to that, and the only security is Christ, and the way in which Christ practically works is in the obedience to the word of God.

This was what the man of God, then, was called to the most decided separation from the apostate people, and this because being the people of God they were now idolaters. But "there dwelt an old prophet in Bethel" ah! these old prophets are dangerous people. "Now there dwelt an old prophet in Beth-el; and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Beth-el: the words which he had spoken unto the king, them they told also to their father. And their father said unto them, What way went he? For his sons had seen what way the man of God went, which came from Judah. And he said unto his sons, Saddle me the ass. So they saddled him the ass, and he rode thereon, and went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak."

He was not told to sit under an oak. There was the beginning of it. There was his first failure, and there is no failure there is no ruin that takes place at one step. There is always a departure from the word of the Lord which exposes us to the power of the devil, and it is not first, I repeat, Satan's power. It is first our own failure, our own sin, our own disobedience. He was sitting, then. He had been told that he was not to return by the same way that he came. He was evidently to get away as fast as possible. A man that is forbidden to eat and drink was not intended to sit under a tree. But this old prophet found him sitting under an oak, "and he said unto him, Art thou the man of God that camest from Judah?" Nothing could be apparently a more thorough recognition of his mission and of his work from God. He was a servant of the most high God that had, no doubt, come to show them the right way. There was great respect. "And he said, I am. Then he said unto him, Come home with me, and eat bread. And he said, I may not return with thee, nor go in with thee: neither will I eat bread nor drink water with thee in this place. For it was said to me by the word of Jehovah, Thou shalt eat no bread nor drink water there, nor turn again to go by the way that thou camest."

He does not now come in the same power. When he came it was not merely so. It is a stronger expression. But, however, I will not dwell upon that now. "Thou shalt eat no bread," he repeats as before, "nor drink water there, nor turn again to go by the way that thou camest." "He said unto him, I am a prophet also as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the word of Jehovah saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him. So he went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, and drank water." And there his testimony was broken his sword utterly broken in his hand for it was not merely a word that he was called to, but to deeds, and men will care little for your word if you do not show them by deed that you feel that word which you would fain press upon them. There is nothing that men will not bear you to say if you do not act it out; for this it is that always troubles, not only the world, but still more the old prophets for they are the people that feel. The old prophet could not bear the fact, for if this was the case with the man of God where was the old prophet? And it is not said that he was a false prophet; and the issue of the story would rather seem to show the contrary. But the old prophet was determined to try the man of God and see whether he could not make him as unfaithful as himself, for that is what would have been a miserable salve to a bad conscience. There is nothing that so troubles Christians that are not walking with God as when there are any that do; and there is nothing so important as not merely the testimony, but the living testimony, the walking in what you say.

Accordingly, this was the point that he assailed. "Can I not get him to eat bread and drink water?" So he pretends that he has a fresh message from God. What was the man of God about? Does God say and unsay? If it were so we should have no standard whatever, no certainty, and what would become of the poor children if there were such a thing. I know that unbelief constantly says it, and tries to make the Bible contradict itself, but then those who do so are guilty; and so the old prophet was guilty of lying "he lied unto him." Nevertheless, the man of God listened. He had sat under the oak and was found by the old prophet there. He listened to the old prophet, and parleyed with him. The mischief takes effect. The man of God returns, breaking the word of the Lord in his own person, but not without the hand of God stretched out against him. If the man of God was false to God, God would be true to the man of God and true in a most painful way; and mark, beloved friends, most righteously; but it is a righteousness according to God, for we in our folly would have thought, "Surely the old prophet is the man that is going to die for this." Not so, but the man of God. For it is those who ought to know best, if they fail, that God chastises most. Do not wonder if the same things are done elsewhere and pass, apparently, without a chastening from God, or without any very direct exposure. These things cannot be done where the word of the Lord is the rule.

The man of God, accordingly, hears now the word, and this word was given him by the old prophet. "And he cried unto the man of God that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith Jehovah, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of Jehovah, and hast not kept the commandment which Jehovah thy God commanded thee, but camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place of the which Jehovah did say to thee, Eat no bread, and drink no water; thy carcase shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers." It is not that his spirit did not go to the Lord. We are sure it did, but, nevertheless, his body did not come to the sepulchre of his fathers. The Lord did deal with him, and dealt with the body that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord.

"And it came to pass, after he had eaten bread, and after he had drunk, that he saddled for him the ass, to wit, for the prophet whom he had brought back. And when he was gone, a lion met him by the way, and slew him: and his carcase was cast in the way, and the ass stood by it, the lion also stood by the carcase."

What a testimony! It is not so that the lions usually behave. It was in itself a wonder. The body of the man of God lay there, the ass beside it, the lion on the other side, all perfectly peaceful. The work was done. God was just in it, and accomplished what He pleased, but the lion had no mission to do more, and there in the face of all men it was evident that the hand of God was there according to the word of God. "And when the prophet that brought him back from the way heard thereof, he said, It is the man of God." He knew right well whose carcase was there. "It is the man of God who was disobedient unto the word of Jehovah: therefore Jehovah hath delivered him unto the lion, which hath torn him, and slain him, according to the word of Jehovah, which he spake unto him."

And so the prophet goes and finds the ass and the lion standing by the carcase. "The lion had not eaten the carcase, nor torn the ass. And the prophet took up the carcase of the man of God, and laid it upon the ass, and brought it back: and the old prophet came to the city, to mourn and to bury him. And he laid his carcase in his own grave; and they mourned over him, saying, Alas, my brother!"

What a history! How true and how full of instruction, but how, solemn solemn to think of the man of God, but, oh! what can we say of the old prophet? What can we say of those that tempt the men that are of God and that have been faithful in their mission, to depart from the word of the Lord, and draw a miserable consolation to themselves for the moment to countenance their own living in habitual disobedience, in habitual ease where the man of God was forbidden to eat of the bread or drink of the water? There is nothing that so hardens the heart, and there is nothing that so destroys the conscience, as habitual disobedience to the word of the Lord not in gross sins, but in religious indifference. That was what marked the old prophet. He consoled himself that he had respect for the Lord respect for the man of God. He was put to the proof. He was Satan's instrument, and he brought out, no doubt, the weakness of the very vessel that God had made so strong against king Jeroboam. He knew he was utterly weak before the seductions of the old prophet. Oh, beware of such! Beware of those who use their age or their position, or anything else, to weaken the children of God in their obedience to the word of the Lord.

This, then, is the deeply interesting and instructive history of the true path of saints of God in the midst of that which is departed from scripture departed from the Lord.

Another thing that we learn, too, is that after this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way. He could entreat the prophet, the man of God, and the man of God could entreat Jehovah, and not without an answer, but it had taken no effect upon his conscience. There is no good done unless conscience is reached in the presence of God. "He made again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places: whosoever, would he consecrated." It was not only Jeroboam's will that was at work, but anybody's will, everybody's will. "Whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places. And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the earth."

In the next chapter (1 Kings 14:1-31), accordingly, we find the hand of God stretched out against the house of Jeroboam. Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick, and Jeroboam well knew that there was reality in this man of God, so he bethinks himself of another Ahijah the prophet. He tells his wife to go to Shiloh and to see Ahijah. "And Jeroboam said to his wife, Arise, I pray thee, and disguise thyself, that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam; and get thee to Shiloh: behold, there is Ahijah the prophet, which told me that I should be king over this people." She was to bring an honorary gift in her hand to present to the prophet, and Jeroboam's wife did so; and it is written for our instruction.

Ahijah could not see for his eyes were set; they were fixed by reason of his age, but God gave him to hear and gave him to see, too, what was unseen. "And Jehovah said unto Ahijah, Behold the wife of Jeroboam cometh." What was the folly of men! There was a man that could trust the prophet to tell him the future, and not to see through the disguise of his wife. How great is the folly of the wise, for Jeroboam was a wise man after this world. But the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God, even as God's wisdom is foolishness in their eyes. "And it was so, when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet as she came in at the door that he said, Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself to be another?" What a humiliation! "For I am sent to thee with heavy tidings. Go, tell Jeroboam, Thus saith Jehovah God of Israel, Forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the people, and made thee prince over my people Israel, and rent the kingdom away from the house of David, and gave it thee: and yet thou hast not been as my servant David, who kept my commandments, and who followed me with all his heart, to do that only which was right in mine eyes; but hast done evil above all that were before thee: for thou hast gone and made thee other gods, and molten images, to provoke me to anger, and hast cast me behind thy back: therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam."

Abijah he was not to recover. She was to get back to her husband and to her house. "And when thy feet enter into the city, the child shall die. And all Israel shall mourn for him, and bury him: for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there is found some good thing toward Jehovah God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam." What grace of God to produce some good thing toward Jehovah God of Israel in the house of the man that had wrought such things against Jehovah, and to show His mercy in taking him away from the evil to come! "And he shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin." And that was not all. "And who made Israel to sin." And so it was. Jeroboam died and Nadab his son reigned in his stead.

"And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which Jehovah did choose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. And his mother's name was Naamah an Ammonitess. And Judah did evil in the sight of Jehovah, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done. For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree. And there were also sodomites in the land; and they did according to all the abominations of the nations." And, accordingly, God let loose the king of Egypt against Rehoboam, He came up "and he took away the treasures of the house of Jehovah, and the treasures of the king's house; he even took away all; and he took away all the shields of gold that Solomon had made," so that Rehoboam was driven at last to shields of brass.

"Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days. And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And his mother's name was Naamah an Ammonitess. And Abijam his son reigned in his stead."

On what follows I make a very few remarks in concluding this lecture. We have here a signal turning point in the history of Israel. In 1 Kings 15:1-34 we have a long and deep course of evil and of the Lord's righteous ways in the house of Jeroboam. But first of all as to Abijam. "He walked," it is said, "in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him: and his heart was not perfect with Jehovah his God, as the heart of David his father. Nevertheless for David's sake did Jehovah his God give him a lamp in Jerusalem, to set up his son after him, and to establish Jerusalem: because David did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah." And God forgets it never. "And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life. Now the rest of the acts of Abijam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam. And Abijam slept with his fathers."

And Asa succeeds, who reigns a long while in Jerusalem, and he does what was right in the eyes of Jehovah as did David his father. He took away the sodomites out of the land. "Asa's heart was perfect," or, undivided, "with Jehovah all his days. And he brought in the things which his father had dedicated, and the things which himself had dedicated, into the house of Jehovah, silver, and gold, and vessels." We find the war continued, and Baasha king of Israel builds Ramah that he might not suffer any one to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah. But it was in vain. Benhadad, the king of Syria, hearkens to king Asa. A sad descent in his latter days that the king of Judah finds his refuge in the king of Israel instead of in the Lord. Nevertheless, all goes, apparently, well for the moment, for God does not judge all at once. "It came to pass when Baasha heard thereof that he left off building." The house of Asa is concluded here. "In the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet. And Asa slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David his father."

Nadab comes to his end, and Baasha conspires against him and "smote him at Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines: for Nadab and all Israel laid siege to Gibbethon. Even in the third year of Asa king of Judah did Baasha slay him, and reigned in his stead. And it came to pass, when he reigned, that he smote all the house of Jeroboam; he left not to Jeroboam any that breathed, until he had destroyed him, according unto the saying of Jehovah which he spake by his servant Ahijah the Shilonite: because of the sins of Jeroboam which he sinned, and which he made Israel sin, by his provocation wherewith he provoked Jehovah God of Israel to anger. Now the rest of the acts of Nadab, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel."

So then in this very next chapter (1 Kings 16:1-34) we find what I have already referred to the judgment following. The sovereignty passes out of the hand of Jeroboam. Zimri his captain rises up against him. Omri kills Zimri. Thus family after family takes possession of Israel, but God left Himself not without warning. It was in that very time that a great and solemn act was done according to the word of the Lord. A man dared to despise the word of Joshua, who had pronounced a curse upon him that would raise Jericho once more. It was not that Jericho was not inhabited, but to raise its walls as a city to give it the character of a city was despising God. The judgment was long stayed. A long time had intervened, but God had forgotten nothing. In these wicked days if he raises up one part the judgment is in the death of his eldest son, and if he raises up another part it is in the death of his youngest. His family paid the penalty of despising the word of the Lord. Oh, what a thing it is to us, beloved friends, to see how God maintained His word not only with the man of God, on the one hand, but with the open despiser and blasphemer, on the other. The Lord give us more and more to delight in the word of the Lord, and give us to cultivate a deepening acquaintance with every part of the word. Amen.