Bible teaching on 2 Chronicles 6–9: God's mercy, repentance, and the joy of God's kingdom
A sermon from Latimer Church working through 2 Chronicles chapters 6 to 9.
Summary
This is a sermon by James de Costobadie, Senior Pastor at Latimer Church, preaching through 2 Chronicles 6–9. He argues that Chronicles was written for people who know failure — originally the descendants of those exiled to Babylon in 587 BC — and that these chapters provide three things to cling to when we fail spiritually. He traces Solomon's prayer of dedication, God's response in chapter 7, and the account of the Queen of Sheba in chapters 8–9, drawing out their significance for Christian life today. The central claim is that God's mercy, not human faithfulness, is the foundation of the relationship between God and his people, and that the kingdom of God under Jesus surpasses anything this world can offer.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction: The "What Next?" Question
James de Costobadie: We begin today at one of the great high points in the Old Testament. The preparations for the temple have been completed — that's the last eight chapters of 1 Chronicles. We've had Solomon asking for wisdom in 2 Chronicles chapter 1. We've then had Solomon displaying the wisdom he's been given — that's him building the temple, chapters 2 through to chapter 5. And at the end of chapter 5 we read that a cloud descends into the temple, a cloud that is so thick that the priests there are unable to do their job, and the Lord has come down to be with his people.
And the question is: what next? Now that he is back with them, as he had been in the Garden of Eden, what next? And if you know anything about the Old Testament in particular, you'll know it's a dangerous question to ask, because the answer is rarely a good one. You think of Adam and Eve in the garden — what's not to enjoy in this millionaire's playground before the fall? And then what next? Adam and Eve make terrible choices. Or you think of the nation of Israel in the promised land, the land of milk and honey. What's not to enjoy in the promised land? What next? Oh no, they turn away from God who gave it to them. Every time humans have an opportunity, they tend to take the wrong choice. We have an expert ability to make poor choices.
And in thinking about what next, you and I know the same story in our own lives, because the Christian life, it transpires, is not a straight line from here through to stratospheric, taking off spiritually until we land in the New Jerusalem. The Christian life ends up with humps and bumps. It has valleys as well as peaks, and the reason is so often because of the choices that we make along the way. A person becomes a Christian, maybe fantastic, they have great joy at their baptism, and then within six months they're really struggling and they find that they're falling flat on their face. Or someone who's been a Christian perhaps for many years, and then reaches middle age and makes decisions that they never thought they would ever do. Crazy decisions. Now that is the same for all of us.
Chronicles Written for People Who Know Failure
And in a way, Chronicles is written for people such as us — people who know a level of failure in their lives. There's a degree of failure in the book of Chronicles which we can all relate to. The readers of this book were the descendants of those who had been in exile. So around 587 BC, the Israelites are turfed out of the land because of their centuries of idolatry. God has warned them, has warned them, has warned them, and eventually his patience runs out. He brings the Babylonian tanks in, they flatten Jerusalem, they kidnap the people and take them off to their land. It's the most brutal form of punishment, really, that they never, ever thought would happen.
The readers here are about 150 years later on and are still suffering the consequences of what happened back in the time of the exile. But what you get here is actually going back further. The exile happened around 587 BC. This here, Solomon, is about 950 BC. And what is given here is an account that will help the readers understand how to deal with failure.
What next is rarely a question answered positively, but what you do get is that in the face of failure, God shows us what we need to do. And so this morning, as we're looking at chapters 6 through 9 of 2 Chronicles, three things to cling on to when we fail spiritually in life.
First: God's Mercy Will Be Our Greatest Hope
First thing: know that God's mercy will be our greatest hope.
Solomon begins in chapter 6 by praising God for the way he has kept his promises. Ours is a covenant-making and a covenant-keeping God. What he promises, he always delivers, exactly on time. So have a look at chapter 6, verse 1:
"Solomon said, 'The Lord has said he would dwell in a dark cloud. I have built a magnificent temple for you, God, a temple for you to dwell in forever.'"
And while the whole assembly of Israel was standing there, the king turned around and blessed them, and then he said:
"Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who with his hands has fulfilled what he promised with his mouth to my father David."
God fulfils his promises. Scoot forward to verse 10 — it's exactly the same:
"The Lord has kept the promise he made. I have succeeded David my father and now I sit on the throne of Israel, just as the Lord promised."
Okay, God has promised. But what happens when we can't keep our promises? What happens? God is faithful, but what happens when we're not faithful? What next, when we fall on our faces?
And so Solomon then comes to the Lord and prays for the future. You see in verse 12 he clambers onto this platform — verse 13, made of bronze. We're given the dimensions: it's about 1.3 metres high. If you've been to Majestic for our seven o'clock service, that's about 1.3 metres high as well. And he stands on the platform, he kneels down before the whole assembly of Israel, because he's about to talk about what happens when they sin. So he kneels and he spreads out his hands towards heaven.
And the first thing he does is speak of what God is like:
"O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven or on earth."
And verse 18:
"Will God really dwell on earth with men? The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain you — how much less this temple I have built."
So the first thing Solomon does is acknowledge who God is. He is saying here that God is greater than people realise, greater than we understand. He is greater even than our imaginations. The God who is the one true and living God is not the kind of God that people think of when they think, "Oh, I wonder whether God's like this, or I wonder whether God's like that." When people think like that, all they do is make a bigger version of themselves. This God is different to that. He is the God you cannot contain. Graciously, he's come down to dwell with the people, but you cannot keep him in a building.
Here is the God, says Solomon, who even the highest heavens cannot contain. He is greater than we understand. He is more magnificent than we can ever get our minds around. He cannot be contained. You remember back at the burning bush, God described himself by saying, "I am who I am" — in other words, you will know me by what I do. No words can speak of me. You will see me by what I do. You cannot describe exactly what this God is. He is greater than we decide. In other words, he cannot be boxed. We can be boxed, and one day we will be boxed into the ground, but this God is the ever-living God who cannot ever be boxed.
And Solomon realises that he can only come to God therefore by God's mercy. God doesn't owe people a place in heaven. Sometimes people assume as if they've got a right to walk in, or someone dies and they say, "I like to think of this person now stroking their dogs in heaven," as if they've got some sort of right to be there. Solomon knows it's only by God's mercy — the fact that God does not treat him as his sins deserve — that this great God will be able to relate to us and us to him.
Have a look at verse 19:
"Yet give attention to your servant's prayer and his plea for mercy, O Lord my God. Hear the cry and prayer that your servant is praying in your presence. May your eyes be open towards this temple day and night, this place of which you said you would put your name there. May you hear the prayer your servant prays towards this place. Hear the supplications of your servant and your people Israel when they pray towards this place. Hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive."
It's a plea for the mercy of God, because it's only through God's mercy that the people will be able to come back to God when they fail him and when they sin. And notice that the temple is going to be the fount, the source, of his mercy.
I want us to stop there for a moment and just acknowledge that God, as Solomon speaks of him here, is so different to how so many people imagine God to be. There are so many people who think of God — if there is a God at all — as the God of the wagging finger, or the God of the disapproving look, or the God who stands over us waiting to drop the hammer on us. That's how they think of him. And because they think of him in that way, they're very slow to come to him, and many people spend their lives running away from God.
When I was age seven, because my parents loved me a great deal, they sent me away to boarding school. The school I went to was a school that, actually, later on when I asked my mum what it was like as a parent, she said, "Oh, yeah, even in the early 1980s, it was backwards for back then." It was run by a man — he was the principal — called David Carr, who had fought on the Normandy beaches in 1944 and had been shot in the arm. And his arm was still bent double with the metal inside it. So you can imagine that he wasn't too empathetic for seven-year-old boys who were missing their mummy. That wasn't really David Carr's language. That wasn't how he went about life. And for us, we knew that the way to relate to him was to keep out of his way. So we set up a rather elaborate system whereby people would warn each other — I sort of feel it's probably what did happen in the war — you'd have a whisper go down the line: "Beware, David Carr." And because we were taught in Latin in those days, the warning was in Latin: cave — cave means beware. So this would go down the line. The whole point was we just spent our time trying to keep out of his way.
That's how a lot of people treat God. They just enjoy the life they've got, gobble up all the good things he gives to them, but stay away from God. Don't want to get to know him. They fear what life would be like. And it's true, we deserve a terrible hiding from God. But here we learn that he is the merciful God. What next when we sin? He wants to show mercy. This would be their only hope. This would be their greatest hope.
And so the rest of the prayer — chapter 6, by the way, is the longest petition in the Bible — the rest of the prayer is to do with: Lord, please forgive. Solomon here, I think, trembles on behalf of the people. He knows that probably what's going to come is not going to be good. He sees the future in that way. He sees the frailty of the people. And so the rest of the prayer, he asks God to forgive them almost ahead of time.
Verse 24: when they've sinned and then are defeated in war — what next? Lord, show mercy. Verse 26: when there is no rain as a sign of judgment because the people have sinned — what next? Lord, show mercy. Verses 28 to 31: when you suffer famine because of your sin — what next? Show mercy, Lord. Have mercy upon us.
I was thinking about this during the week. I don't know if there's something in this about praying for the future: Lord, please have mercy on us if I ever get to a time in my life when I turn from you. Please have mercy. I've not really thought about that before, so I'll sort of keep chewing over that.
But the main point is that he is the God of mercy. And look how far the mercy extends. Verse 32 of chapter 6:
"As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm — when he comes and prays towards this temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your name."
This mercy of God is open to anyone, whoever they are, whatever life they've lived, however long they've lived apart from God. It's open to them. There are so many people who write themselves out of God's plans, think maybe they're not from the right background or whatever it is. But anyone is welcome to this God — but only through the mercy of God.
And if Solomon knew that this was the case, how much more do you and I know it's the case, living this side of Jesus Christ in his incarnation? Jesus, who called himself — described himself as — the temple. In other words, the fount of God's mercy, because he is the very dwelling place of God. When a person understands who Jesus is, when a person understands how merciful Jesus is, that's the understanding that breaks the hardest of hearts. That no matter what we've done against him, no matter how long we've been on the run from him, he is more than willing to show mercy to us. When you look at the cross of Christ, you see the mercy of God written in blood. It's God's covenant to us, his promise to us, that he will accept everyone who comes to his Son, such that in the New Testament we read: "Let us then approach the throne of grace" — which is really the cross — "with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and grace to help us in our time of need."
What next when you've failed? Come to the throne of grace, where God is always more willing to give than we are to ask him for that gift. The mercy of God will be our greatest hope.
Second: Their Repentance Would Be Their Greatest Challenge
Then secondly, chapter 7: their repentance would be their greatest challenge. And I suggest ours will be the same.
Solomon finishes his prayer. Verse 1 of chapter 7: when Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of God filled the temple. As at Mount Carmel, fire comes down to show that he is the one true and living God who has heard what Solomon has said. And now, because God has responded, joy takes over and the people celebrate.
And my goodness, do they know how to celebrate. Solomon leads the charge on the celebrations. Verse 4: the king and all the people offer sacrifices before the Lord. Just have a look at the numbers in verse 5: he offered a sacrifice of 22,000 head of cattle. 22,000 — that is a lot of cattle. And then 120,000 sheep and goats. That is a lot of goat. And the whole lot gets sacrificed. We're told in verse 7 that it's burnt offerings and the fat of fellowship offerings, and there are grain offerings and fat portions as well, and some of it would have been eaten in the feast itself.
They feast for seven days, verse 8, and we read that all Israel was with Solomon. The chronicler loves that phrase — "all Israel." They're all together. A vast assembly, people from Lebo Hamath in the north to the Wadi of Egypt in the south. So as we would say, everyone from top to bottom celebrated in the country what God is like. They understand he's the God of mercy. He's good. They remind each other: his love endures forever.
Now on the 23rd day of the seventh month, verse 10, he sends the people to their homes. Notice what they're like in verse 10: joyful and glad in heart. When people are reminded what God is like — and never forget, God is better than we ever think he is, and he's more merciful than we ever understand him to be — when we understand what he's like, it makes the people joyful and glad in heart. And it will do the same for us as well.
What's interesting, I think, is then what happens next. Because Solomon — everyone goes back to their homes, and Solomon goes back to his palace. None of us quite know what it's like to be a monarch going back home after a busy time. I think that's why The Crown was popular — it gives you that inside view as to perhaps what it's like. When a monarch takes off their robes and climbs into their silk pyjamas and lies in bed, at the end of the day, they're just like the rest of us. It's one person, one body in a bed.
And the Lord comes to Solomon in verse 12:
"I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices."
Solomon has just prayed for the whole country and the whole future of the country, and God says, "I have heard your prayer and I have chosen this place." In other words: I will show mercy to you through the temple, if you do the right things.
And verse 14 is the most famous verse in the books of Chronicles, and rightly so. It tells us the three things that someone has to do to receive the mercy of God:
"If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."
The Three Conditions of Verse 14
First of all, they need to humble themselves to receive God's mercy. It's not easy for people to humble themselves. Naturally, there is something in all of us that wants to justify ourselves a little bit, or explain ourselves a little bit — why we did what we did. Very hard in life to hold up your hands and say, "It was me, I shouldn't have done it." Modern psychology has not helped in that. It's provided a whole host of whipping boys to help that process of excusing ourselves — as in, it was my upbringing, it was my parents, it was my genes, it was my schooling, it was you that made me do it. But really there's nothing modern about that. We've been playing that game since the Garden of Eden itself. We humans just find it so hard to put up our hands and say, "Actually, it was me. It was my fault. I should not have done what I did. I should not have said what I said." That's the long and the short of it. It's so hard for us to do that. But that's what God calls them to do — to humble themselves.
Secondly, to pray and to seek his face, verse 14: "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face." It's one thing to wallow in self-pity. It's another thing to be upfront about it. And again, we find it so hard. We find it hard to come to other people — really difficult to come to someone and say, "I'm so sorry. I should not have said what I said. I should not have done what I've done." And so hard to come to God. And when we come to God, it's even harder in another way, because particularly when you do this for the first time — when you're not yet a Christian, you humble yourself to become a Christian — you're saying, "I'm a wicked sinner and I can't change myself. I can't do anything about it. I'm powerless." And we humans hate to admit that we're powerless. So here they need to seek his face. We can't cling on to our sins. We can't deny our sins. We cannot deny the God who made us and against whom we've sinned. And we need to come to him.
And I want to say this morning that if you've never taken this step, what is stopping you from doing it? He's inviting us to come to him, to receive mercy.
And then thirdly, we need to turn from our sin. Verse 14: "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways." And maybe this is the hardest part of all. And the reason it's hard is because sin is enjoyable, at least in its initial taste. I mean, if it wasn't, then we wouldn't do it. The fruit was pleasing to the eye, good for food, and best of all it was forbidden. And we all like something that's forbidden in life. Well, that's the same as our sins. Individual sins — we gossip because it transfers a degree of power onto us. The bitterness that we cling on to makes us feel self-righteous. Or our sins as the people of God: independence of spirit, or our inclination to promote our own comfort over the salvation of the lost.
It's so difficult to turn from what we know to be wrong. And again, because in some total, it's so crushing. I absolutely remember and will never forget the night I became a Christian, age 19. It was not a positive thing in any way, shape or form, at least how it seemed to me at the time. It was a humbling. It was a having to admit something you've never admitted before.
Although some years later I was comforted when I read that rather wonderful book, Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert — I don't know if you've read that — Rosaria Butterfield, who spoke about how, as a lesbian professor in an American university, she was won over by the love and care of Christians over a long period. But she describes how when she became a Christian, again it didn't feel like a positive thing. She actually described it like a train smash. And the reason she did was because Jesus smashed everything she'd stood for and everything she believed in. She said, "My life was smashed into a thousand pieces." It doesn't feel very positive in life to be smashed. But then to be replaced with the beautiful new life that Jesus gives in the kingdom which God is making — you can't have the second without the first.
Maybe the challenge for the readers of this book would not be the numerous construction projects they needed to do to get the land back up and running. Maybe the challenge would be the responsibility to own their own wrongdoing in order to repent of it. And for us individually, or as a church, very likely that will be our greatest challenge as well — not so much the deeds we do or the building that we build, but can we admit our wrongdoing in life, individually and as a church, and repent of it? It's not easy. And we need the grace of God to be able to keep doing that.
Third: God's Kingdom Would Be Their Greatest Joy
And to help us in it, he gives us this wonderful incentive, which is the third truth we need to cling to before we finish. And that is that God's kingdom would be their greatest joy. His mercy would be their only hope. Their repentance would be their greatest challenge. And God's kingdom would be their — and our — greatest joy.
Now this is chapters 8 and 9, and absolutely brilliant chapters they are. The chronicler has been giving a roadmap to his people to help them rise from the ashes and show what that will involve after the exile. They need to know that God is merciful, and they need to be reminded of the continual need to repent. But they also need to be reminded that the best life there is to be lived is the life lived in the kingdom of God under God's anointed king.
Now, whatever your contemporaries, whatever kind of life they're living in this world, it will not compare with what God is offering under the life of his king. I want us to see that in these two chapters.
There are places for his people to live — that comes in verses 2 and 3 of chapter 8. There are store cities that will be storing their plenty and abundance — that comes in verses 4 and 5 of chapter 8. There are cities that seem to be set aside purely as garrison towns for the chariots and horses to be stored, so they can live in safety without fear — that's verse 5. And in fact verse 6: whatever Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, Lebanon, throughout the territories, that got built.
These things here are all wonderful shadows of what we will gain in the kingdom of God under our wonderful king, the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember how Jesus spoke of his Father's house having many rooms — there'll be a place for everyone, everyone who believes in Jesus from across the world and down the ages. More than enough room for everyone. Plenty of room.
Secondly, there will be an abundance there. When you get to the book of Revelation, we read that the people will no longer hunger or thirst. Think of Christians who live in some parts of this world where the situation is so dire — to receive those promises that in the new creation there will be only abundance. Remember how the trees produce their fruit every month of the year, we're told in the new creation.
And where they will enjoy protection — in the new creation there'll be no gates, we're told, around the city. You only need gates when you're worried about being attacked or robbed or something. There won't be any gates in heaven. Not needed.
Then you see the privileged status of God's people. Here it's stated in verse 9 that Solomon didn't make slaves of the Israelites. We won't be slaves. And those who inherit the new creation under Jesus — well, we're not slaves either. We're called sons, children, daughters of God. So these are all wonderful shadows of what it's like to live under Jesus.
The Queen of Sheba
Now then we get to the Queen of Sheba. The temple gets finished. The stage is set for her arrival. Initially, she's attracted by Solomon's fame, and she brings two things: one, some hard questions, and secondly, a boatload of goodies. The hard questions, verse 2, are not too hard for Solomon to answer, and he's able to answer absolutely all of them.
I said earlier on that I enjoy receiving feedback from people about aspects of church life, as it shows that people care. I always try to answer that as best I can, but I never promise that I can answer everyone's questions, for obvious reasons. Solomon had no such restriction — for him, he was able to answer everyone. And she's absolutely gobsmacked by his wisdom, which just pours forth from his mouth.
But she's also overwhelmed by what she sees. Verse 3: the palace he's built. The food on his table. Verse 4 of chapter 9: the seating of his officials, the attending servants in their robes, the cupbearers in their robes, the burnt offerings he made at the temple of the Lord. She was overwhelmed — she was a queen, but she'd never seen anything like this. And so verse 6, she says:
"Not even half the greatness of your wisdom was told me. You have far exceeded the report I had."
And then verse 7: "How happy your men must be." Of course, what's not to like about living under a monarch like this?
And you and I will know, if you're a Christian here today, that to live under Jesus is even better. Solomon was the wisest man and the greatest man — we're told in verse 22 of chapter 9 — greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. But Jesus is far greater still. Jesus, perfectly wise, able to guide us better than anyone else, and one day to provide riches for us such as you and I have never dreamed of. Absolutely amazing.
Now the people reading Chronicles needed to know this. Yes, they needed warnings to repent, not to be like their forebears. Yes, they needed to know the mercy of God. But they also needed to know how good it is to live under God's rule. And we need to be reminded of the same.
A couple of other details just on the way through. The spices the queen brings — because she's in such admiration of him, verse 9 — she comes from Yemen, by the way, and back then must have had a few spices there, because we're told there'd never been such spices as what she brought to King Solomon. And then verse 10: the king of Hiram and the men of Solomon brought gold from Ophir, and they also brought algum wood and precious stones. I feel like algum wood has come straight out of Harry Potter or something — it sounds like a Harry Potter sort of word, but this sort of precious wood. And again, nothing like them had ever been seen in Judah, verse 11. The world had never seen anything like this.
And the people reading Chronicles needed to know that this is what it's like to live under the king. And we need to know that's what it's like to live under Jesus, one day in the future.
Now she goes home. But look at what remains at the centre. Verse 17: this great throne, inlaid with ivory and overlaid with pure gold. The throne, we're told, has six steps, and on the steps there are lions carved in. And there's so much gold floating around that even the goblets are gold, and we're told in verse 20 that nothing was made of silver, because silver was considered of little value in Solomon's day. Verse 21: the king had a fleet of trading ships, manned by Hiram's men. Once every three years it returned, carrying gold, silver and ivory, and apes and baboons — because who wouldn't need some apes and baboons when you're running a kingdom?
Now, what is this saying? It's saying to the readers: do not swap this for anything. Do not swap your place in this kingdom with anything else. And what is the message for us? Do not turn away from Jesus and sacrifice your place in his kingdom, whatever comes to you in this life.
We can have some pretty difficult things in life. There are people in this church who have been through very difficult things in this year and in the last few years. But whatever God in his wisdom brings into our lives, do not sacrifice your place in this kingdom.
As Christians, we can make some ridiculous decisions. All of us are capable of making silly decisions. But sometimes as a Christian, you show your faith in Jesus not by what you do in life, but by what you do after you've done the wrong thing. It's one thing to do the wrong thing, which we're all capable of. But at least afterwards, come back to the mercy of God. Don't compound our stupidity by walking away from Jesus at the same time. He is the one who is able to show mercy. So come back to him.
You cannot put a price on the benefits of living in the kingdom of God. Getting a golden ticket in Willy Wonka's day was a good thing. Getting a ticket to a World Cup final might be your dream in life. But whatever you do, do not walk away from Jesus and forsake a ticket into the kingdom of heaven.
And if you're someone who's not yet put your trust in Jesus, can I say: what are you waiting for? What is not to like about this? Sure, there are some difficulties. We've talked about them. Repenting of sins is not easy. But what's not to like about being part of his kingdom?
This is what the people needed to know when they failed in life. Remember that God's mercy is our only hope. Remember that repentance — our repentance — will be our greatest challenge. But don't let it stop you. And remember, thirdly, that God's kingdom will be our greatest joy.
Closing Prayer
Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, you've been so generous and so kind to us. Lord, life does contain many difficulties. You know that better than anyone, because of the incarnation and the life of Jesus in this world. And I do pray for those amongst us who suffer or are going through difficult times. Lord, help us to remember your mercy. Give us a humility to repent before you. And help us, Lord, to remember the goodness that you've shown us in the kingdom of God, and to rejoice in that. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.