Word of Encouragement (05/14/2024)
And he stood and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice, saying, 56 “Blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised. Not one word has failed of all his good promise, which he spoke by Moses his servant. 57 The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our fathers. May he not leave us or forsake us, 58 that he may incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his rules, which he commanded our fathers. 59 Let these words of mine, with which I have pleaded before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, and may he maintain the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel, as each day requires, 60 that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no other. 61 Let your heart therefore be wholly true to the Lord our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day.” (1 Kings 8:55-61)
Solomon prayed for the LORD’s presence with Israel. This should not surprise us because there are countless blessings we can expect when God is present with us. After all, He is our rock and fortress, our shield and defender, our shepherd and guide, and our salvation and victory; He is the Fount of every blessing. But in this benediction, Solomon prayed for God’s presence so that “he may incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his rules...” (v. 58). Already present is the idea of union with God/Christ. It is only out of our union with God/Christ that we are able to walk in righteousness.
But in v. 60, Solomon speaks of the ultimate reason for His prayer for God’s presence and His attentiveness to his (and his people’s) petitions: “...that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no other.” We are reminded that God’s glory is the ultimate goal of all that God does and should be ours as well. If being good is to seek what is best (the ultimate good), God is morally obligated to seek His glory because He is the ultimate Good. Unless we accept this truth, we cannot understand the ways of God in this world and in our lives.
The Bible shows that God glorifies Himself in two main ways: by His gracious salvation of the elect and by His just damnation of the reprobate. In v. 60, Solomon makes this clear: He prays that the LORD would bless His people Israel with His presence so that the whole world might know that the God of Israel is the only true God. When Paul reviews God’s work of salvation in Eph. 1, he repeatedly says as the goal of our salvation, “to the praise of his glorious grace” (v. 6), “to the praise of his glory” (v. 12), and “to the praise of his glory” (v. 14). In the next chapter, too, he says after affirming that our salvation is by grace, why our salvation is by His grace: “so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (2:7).
The second aspect—that God glorifies Himself by the just damnation of the reprobate—is difficult, but it is made clear in the Bible also: “And I heard the angel in charge of the waters say, ‘Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments’” (Rev. 16:5); “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow , in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:11); “O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us” (Ps. 137:8), etc. The Bible even says, “The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble” (Prov. 16:4).
As God will not fail to punish the wicked for the glory of His justice, He will not fail to redeem His people for the glory of His grace. How blessed are those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ and been passed out of judgment into life!