This evening, we read the word of God in the book of Second Chronicles, Second Chronicles, chapter six. The temple that Solomon built has just been completed, and 2 Chronicles 6 records what happened at the dedication ceremony of that temple, particularly Solomon's prayer, his words to the people and then his prayer. 2 Chronicles 6, this is the word of God. Then said Solomon, the Lord hath said that he would dwell in the thick darkness, But I built an house of habitation for thee and a place for thy dwelling forever. And the king turned his face and blessed the whole congregation of Israel. And all the congregation of Israel stood. And he said, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who hath with his hands fulfilled that which he spake with his mouth to my father David, saying, since the day that I brought forth my people out of the land of Egypt, I chose no city among all the tribes of Israel to build a house in that my name might be there. Neither chose I any man to be a ruler over my people Israel, but I have chosen Jerusalem. that my name might be there, and have chosen David to be over my people Israel. Now it was in the heart of David my father to build and house for the name of the Lord God of Israel. But the Lord said to David my father, for as much as it was in thine heart to build and house for my name, thou didst well in that it was in thine heart. Notwithstanding, thou shalt not build the house, but thy son, which shall come forth out of thy loins, he shall build the house for my name. The Lord therefore hath performed his word that he hath spoken, for I am risen up in the room of David my father, and am set on the throne of Israel, as the Lord promised, and have built the house for the name of the Lord God of Israel. And in it have I put the ark, wherein is the covenant of the Lord, that he made with the children of Israel. And he stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the congregation of Israel and spread forth his hands. For Solomon had made a brazen scaffold of five cubits long and five cubits broad and three cubits high and had set it in the midst of the court. And upon it he stood and kneeled down upon his knees before all the congregation of Israel and spread forth his hands towards heaven and said, O Lord God of Israel, there is no God like thee in the heaven nor in the earth, which keepest covenant and showest mercy unto thy servants that walk before thee with all their hearts. Thou which hast kept with thy servant David my father that which thou hast promised him, and spakest with thy mouth, and hast fulfilled it with thine hand as it is this day, Now therefore, O Lord God of Israel, keep with thy servant David, my father, that which thou hast promised him, saying, There shall not fail thee a man in my sight to sit upon the throne of Israel, yea, so that thy children take heed to their way to walk in my law as thou hast walked before me. Now then, O Lord God of Israel, let thy word be verified which thou hast spoken unto thy servant David. But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house which I have built. Have respect, therefore, to the prayer of thy servant and to his supplication, O Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry and the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee, that thine eyes may be open upon this house day and night, upon the place whereof thou hast said that thou wouldest put thy name there, to hearken unto the prayer which thy servant prayeth toward this place. Hearken therefore unto the supplications of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, which they shall make toward this place. Hear thou from thy dwelling place, even from heaven, and when thou hearest, forgive. If a man sin against his neighbor, and an oath be laid upon him to make him swear, and the oath come before thine altar in this house, then hear thou from heaven, and do, and judge thy servants by requiting the wicked, by recompensing his way upon his own head, and by justifying the righteous, by giving him according to his righteousness. And if thy people Israel be put to the worst before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee, and shall return and confess thy name, and pray and make supplication before thee in this house, then hear thou from the heavens, and forgive the sin of thy people Israel, and bring them again unto the land which thou gavest to them and to their fathers. When the heaven is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against thee, yet if they pray toward this place, and confess thy name, and turn from their sin, when thou dost afflict them, then hear thou from heaven, and forgive the sin of thy servants, and of thy people Israel, when thou hast taught them the good way, wherein they should walk, and send rain upon thy land, which thou hast given unto thy people for an inheritance. If there be dearth in the land, if there be pestilence, if there be blasting or mildew, locusts or caterpillars, if their enemies besiege them in the cities of their land, whatsoever sore or whatsoever sickness there be, then what prayer or what supplication soever shall be made of any man or of all thy people Israel, when every one shall know his own sore and his own grief and shall spread forth his hands in this house? Then hear thou from heaven thy dwelling place and forgive and render unto every man according unto all his ways whose heart thou knowest, for thou only knowest the hearts of the children of men, that they may fear thee to walk in thy ways so long as they live in the land which thou gavest unto our fathers. Moreover concerning the stranger which is not of thy people Israel, what has come from a far country for thy great namesake, and thy mighty hand, and thy stretched out arm, if they come and pray in this house, then hear thou from the heavens, even from thy dwelling place, and do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for, that all people of the earth may know thy name, and fear thee as doth thy people Israel, and may know that this house which I have built is called by thy name, If thy people go out to war against their enemies by the way that thou shalt send them, and they pray unto thee toward this city which thou hast chosen, and the house which I have built for thy name, then hear thou from the heavens their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause. If they sin against thee, for there is no man which sinneth not, and thou be angry with them, and deliver them over before their enemies, and they carry them away captives unto a land far off or near, Yet if they bethink themselves in the land, whether they are carried captive, and turn and pray unto thee in the land of their captivity, saying, we have sinned, we have done amiss, and have done wickedly, if they return to thee with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, whether they have carried them captives, and pray toward their land, which thou gavest unto their fathers, and toward the city which thou hast chosen, and toward the house which I have built for thy name, Then hear thou from the heavens, even from thy dwelling place, their prayer and their supplications and maintain their cause and forgive thy people, which they have sinned against thee. Now, my God, let I beseech thee, thine eyes be open and let thine ears be a tent unto the prayer that is made in this place. Now, therefore, arise, O Lord God, into thy resting place, thou and the ark of thy strength. Let thy priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation and let thy saints rejoice in goodness. O Lord God, turn out away the face of thine anointed. Remember the mercies of David, thy servant. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever. The text I call our attention to this evening is verses 18 through 21. We'll read that one more time. But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house which I have built. Have respect, therefore, to the prayer of thy servant and to his supplication, O Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry and the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee, that thine eyes may be opened upon this house day and night, upon the place whereof thou hast said that thou wouldest put thy name there, to hearken unto the prayer which thy servant prayeth toward this place. Hearken therefore unto the supplications of thy servant and of thy people Israel, which they shall make toward this place. Hear thou from thy dwelling place, even from heaven, and when thou hearest, forgive. Beloved congregation and our Lord Jesus Christ, our purpose next week is to meet with God. And there's a special way of meeting with Him when we celebrate the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. We meet with Him at the table. We meet with Him over food and drink, the way families meet together at mealtimes. There will be plates. and cups and pitchers and many things that remind us of our own family life. And yet there is something profoundly different about the Lord's Supper that distinguishes it from mealtime in our own homes. For the person whom we meet at the table is none other than God. There's a real danger, beloved, that the sacrament becomes so routine that we forget about this extraordinary truth. Perhaps that's why the churches in the past established this practice of having a preparatory service to remind us. Next week, you come to sit at table with a holy God with the creator of the stars, with the Lord of heaven. Are you ready to meet him? If we are truly to be ready, we must be deeply impressed by the immeasurable greatness of this God. Solomon knew whom he was dealing with. That's why he says what he says in our text, which is a fairly remarkable thing for him to say on this occasion. Here he has just finished building one of the most magnificent structures that has ever been built with human hands. This is the dedication ceremony for the temple of God, Solomon's temple. And yet Solomon says here, almost as a side note, it's not good enough. It's not glorious enough. It's not big enough. And nothing could be big enough. Nothing could be good enough. Nothing could be glorious enough to house this God. God is too great to dwell in temples. God is too great to dwell even in the heavens or in the heaven of heavens which cannot contain him. Beloved, we must know who we are dealing with when we come to sit at the table of the Lord next Sunday. Who is this God who comes down from heaven to sit at the table with us, to have supper with us? Only then will we understand what an enormous privilege it is that this God has anything to do with us at all. So let's consider together the God too great for temples. First, knowing him, knowing him in his greatness, knowing him as Solomon proclaims him in verse 18. Secondly, approaching him. And Solomon gives us instruction about how we are to approach this God. And then secondly, or finally, we'll conclude with the wondrous truth that we do, in fact, live with, dwell with this God in his house. The God too great for temples, first knowing him, second approaching him, finally living with him. Solomon was standing on a platform made of brass. All around him were the eyes of thousands of the children of Israel, quietly, expectantly looking up to him. Behind him stood the newly constructed Temple of the Lord, shining brightly in the sun. The whole building was covered in gold from top to bottom, and the scent of freshly cut cedar was in the air. Through the open doors, the people could see the golden candlesticks lining one side of the temple, and on the other side, the table of showbread with the showbread placed upon it, and in the back of the temple, the richly, beautifully decorated veil. The priests and the Levites were all standing at attention in their Garments ready to offer sacrifices on the altars and many, many sacrifices they would soon be offering. This moment was seven years in the making. The whole nation up to this point had been a flurry of activity. all mobilized in the construction project, mining stones from the quarry, cutting cedars of Lebanon that were shipped by King Hiram of Tyre down to size and fashioning them into boards, quietly and reverently constructing the house of God on Mount Moriah. But the planning went back even further than the seven years it took to construct the temple, as David also spent much of the time of his reign gathering materials, purchasing the building site from Arunah, the Jebusite, and getting everything in general ready. As Solomon notes in verse seven, it was in the heart of his father David to build a house for God, even though he was not allowed personally to build that house himself. Yet he spent much of his reign planning and preparing for the building of that house. So when the temple was finally built, after all those years of planning and after all of the time and attention that went into it, the temple was strikingly, amazingly beautiful. There's an incident from Old Testament history that helps illustrate just how beautiful this temple was. You might remember how the history goes from this point on. For years and years after the days of Solomon, this beautiful temple would begin to deteriorate. slowly over time, it would deteriorate because the kings of Judah, beginning with Rehoboam, would neglect the upkeep of the temple, and foreign armies would sometimes come and invade, and they would strip away some of the gold and some of the jewels, so that by the days of Jeremiah, just before the captivity, the temple had already lost much of its former glory. And then the temple, or rather the city of Jerusalem was sacked by Nebuchadnezzar's army and the remainder of the gold was stripped away and went into Nebuchadnezzar's treasuries and the structure of the temple itself was burned to the ground. But remember, 70 years after that terrible day, when a small remnant returned out of captivity and they began to rebuild the temple And they had the foundation in place and they had the altar rebuilt. But as that rebuilding of the temple made progress, some of the old men began to cry and to weep openly. And they began to cry and to weep openly because they remembered just how beautiful that first temple of Solomon had been, even though they had only seen it after it had been deteriorating for hundreds of years. Yet compared to the meager rebuilding effort, there was simply no comparison. The temple of Solomon, even in its final days, was a glorious monument A beautiful structure and house of God. Now imagine what that temple must have looked like on the day of its dedication as Solomon stood there on that bronze platform before thousands of the watching eyes of the Israelites. All the considerable riches of the kingdom of Solomon had been poured into the construction of this temple. There was no building like it anywhere else in the world at the time. This was a house deliberately designed and constructed to show that the person who dwells in this place possesses a glory that is unlike any other glory and a majesty that is unlike any other majesty. This is the house of the Most High God. That's the statement that Solomon and the Kingdom of Israel through Solomon's direction was making. that the temple was so glorious then makes it stand out when Solomon says what he says in verse 18. But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house which I have built. That confession of Solomon, beloved, is not the confession of a pagan ruler. A pagan ruler, that is one of Solomon's contemporaries, would have said something like this. Look at this great temple that I have built you, O God. Look at all of the effort that we have poured into it. Look at all of the expense. Look at this glorious structure. Now in return, I expect you to stick with me during the course of my reign. I expect you to fight for me in my battles. I expect you to make of me a great king. I am making you great by building you this beautiful house covered in gold. Now you make me great by blessing my kingdom and by making me prosperous. There were many kings Solomon's contemporaries who made prayers and confessions like that. And that really is the way all man-made religions function at bottom, whether they are ancient or modern. I give something to the God, something that the God values to him, and the God in return gives me something that I value, That's every religion under the sun, beloved, in some way, some fashion. That's the way it goes also when errors and heresies come in to corrupt the Christian gospel. I do something good for God. I believe in him, perhaps. I do some good works for him, perhaps. I fulfill some conditions, perhaps. And then in return, God does something good for me. He gives me some grace. He gives me some health and some wealth. He brings me to heaven. Is this for that? But Solomon would say, if that's the way you think. You have no idea. You have no idea just how enormously big, glorious, and majestic this God truly is. This temple that I have built, for all its gold, all of its glory, it's nothing. It's nothing. It would be so incredibly beneath the great God of heaven, if he were actually to come down and live in this building, and there's not enough gold in the world, there's not enough cedars of Lebanon, there's not enough jewels, there's not enough expense to make it any otherwise, will God, will God indeed come to dwell with men on the earth? Then Solomon scales it up even more than that. Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. Think about that, beloved. Think about that statement. When you look up, you see this great expanse of heaven that is so huge that it holds stars and galaxies as if they are mere pinpricks of light. Millions and millions and even billions of miles away. And each of those galaxies, which appears to us as a pinprick of light, is so huge in and of itself that if you were able to and attempted to cross that expanse of space, you would die of old age before you made it. Even with the sophisticated telescopes and refined instruments that men have invented, there is still nobody who knows just how big heaven is. And yet it's not big enough. It's not wide enough. It's not great enough to be the dwelling place of God. The heaven cannot contain thee, O God. Even if you go past this earthly heaven and into that spiritual heaven beyond where the angels live. And even if you go to the very top of the heavenly place where the glorious throne sits in all of its majesty, even that place isn't big enough. Even that place is not majestic enough for the God whom Solomon worships to dwell there. And will that God live in this little house that I have built? And is God, that God, now beholden to me, Solomon, a man? Because I have built for him this temple? Oh no, beloved. Solomon is much too well aware of the God he's dealing with to come to a conclusion so small-minded when it comes to God. The pagan kings whose minds revolve around their own self-interest don't think nearly big enough when it comes to God. They think God's like themselves. That God operates according to the same logic that they operate according to. And so they deal with God as if he is like themselves. As if he would be impressed with the kinds of things that they are impressed with. But Solomon knows. Solomon knows better than that. And the child of God knows better than that. This God whom we worship, He's too great for temples. Specifically, what is it that makes God so great and too great for temples? On the one hand, this follows from who God is. as the creator of the heavens and the earth. God is the creator, beloved. The creator of the universe. And God is not the creator of the universe in the way that some of you may be creators or builders of houses. When you build a house, You take existing materials and you put them all together. Maybe you put them all together marvelously well and with a brilliant display of craftsmanship. But you don't create that building out of whole cloth. For even as a builder, even as a creator, you must always act, first of all, as a creature. A creature who lives and works and operates within the confines of the creation itself. But when God created the world, it wasn't like that. When God created the world, he called into being the things that are not as though they were. And those things then leapt into existence out of the nothing, out of the void in obedience to his will and word. Rather than working from within the boundaries of the creation, as we do, God is the one who set those boundaries. Rather than working with the material of the creation, as we do, God is the one who gave being and existence to that material. And that puts him in a relationship of total and utter exaltation above everything that is. And that gives us a clue as to why God cannot dwell in temples made with human hands. As the creator of this world, beloved, He transcends this world. He is the God who sets the boundaries. He is necessarily also a being who exists outside of those boundaries and cannot be confined by those boundaries. Children might get some idea of this. And it's only a small idea. But you might get some idea of this if you think about the houses that you have built with Legos. You love to play with Legos, don't you? Well, imagine if your Lego men were alive. And imagine if your Lego men took the bricks out of your bucket where you store your Legos and they built a house. And maybe it was even a very impressive looking Lego house. And then imagine if those Lego men said to you, you should come live in this house that we have built for you. That would be great if you came to live in this house. Now, there'd be many reasons why you'd have to say no to such a proposition. But one of the main reasons is simply that you couldn't possibly fit in a house built by Lego men out of Legos. But even if those Legos could somehow build a house that was big enough for your body to fit in it, it still wouldn't be right, would it? Because Legos aren't designed for a purpose such as that. It wouldn't be fitting For a person, a human being, to live in a building that was made out of toys. Now take that little illustration and magnify it a hundred million times and maybe you will begin to understand. The heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain the Creator God. How much less a temple made with human hands. On the other hand, what makes God, too great for temples, is because He's holy. He's holy, beloved. Even if you can leave this earth, and you can look past that great expanse of the heaven that is above us, and you can look into that heaven of heavens where the angels dwell, what will you find there? Even if you can go up into the highest heights of that heaven, where the highest ranking and most holy and glorious of the angels have their abode, what would you find there? You would find beings. Covering their face with their wings. And their feet. and crying out every day, all day, and every night, all night, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. And even those angels, those heavenly angels, are compelled to cry out the holiness of God, having themselves only seen a small part of God. For even that heaven of heavens where they dwell cannot contain this God. And yet they're overcome with his holiness and his majesty. Now, for all the beauty of Solomon's temple, for all the gold and the precious stones and all of its cost. For all of the care and reverence that went into its construction. This temple was built by sinful human hands. And this temple was plunked right in the center of a sinful, rebellious city, Jerusalem. A city of sinners. A city of sinners who very soon after the glamour and the excitement of this temple dedication passes, will be filling their city full of idols and shrines and temples. to false and pagan gods. And Solomon himself, the very king who is making this prayer, will be the chief culprit in bringing all of that idolatry into this city. And the only thing that stands between these rotten, idolatrous people and this holy, holy God is the blood of bulls and goats sacrificed on this altar. Will God indeed dwell with men on earth? Will God in very deed be able to tolerate these whores, these adulterers, these idolaters who come to his doorstep? This holy God, do you know who you're dealing with? Do you know who you're coming to meet at the Lord's Supper next Sunday, beloved? And when you examine yourself this week, you'll surely find that you are no different than the inhabitants of Jerusalem. No different than Solomon and the people he ruled over. Very pious at times. Very lifted up to the spiritual heights at times. But oh how easily we slink back into our idolatrous natures. Corruption dwells within us. And will God in very deed dwell with us on the earth? Yet you say you would meet with him. And Solomon said he would meet with this God. So how do we approach him? The first thing to say here is that we must only ever approach him as he is. There's always a temptation, beloved, to try to bring God down to our level. And Israel will go on to fall to that temptation again and again and again and again. They will look at the sacrifices they bring into this temple as bargaining chips to gain God's favor or to get God off of their backs. They will use the temple system with its priests and sacrifices as a screen to project the idea that they are righteous while ignoring the things that God really requires of them, which is to love mercy and to walk justly and humbly with their God. They will reject and even kill the prophets that God sends to them, while claiming that God approves of them. The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. That's what they will say, even though they are living in adultery. And even though they oppress the strangers and the followers. And even though they pursue other gods. That's Jeremiah 7 verse 4. If you want to look that up. And this is to bring God down to our level. This is to assume that God sees sin the same way that we do, which is to overlook it easily and casually and to ignore it. This is, instead of receiving God as the holy and exalted God that He is, to make a new God in our own image. And that's what the sinful human heart does, beloved. That's why there's so many idols in the world. That's why Israel set up that golden calf eventually, turning their backs on the temple itself, worshiping that golden calf as if they were worshiping Jehovah. And that's not only a temptation for the Israelites, that's a temptation for us and our children. It's a danger we fall into every time we imagine that just showing up in church on Sunday makes up for our bad behavior on Monday through Saturday. It's a danger that we fall into every time we imagine that God will accept us just because of who our parents were, or because of the school that we send our children to. It's a danger that we fall into whenever we reject the Word of God, when that Word of God comes to us in the form of a warning, and in the form of a call to repentance over sin. And instead of heeding that warning, we rationalize our sin and we rationalize our behavior and our evil thought processes. And maybe we even become angry at the word of God that calls us out. And we say, well, the Israelites said the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. But we might say, well, I'm a reformed Christian. And I was baptized in a Protestant reformed church. And I subscribe to the creeds. And yet what we're really doing is using our church membership and our knowledge as a screen to cover up the fact that our lives are really no different from the world. Is that true? And when we do that, beloved, we're trying to bring God down to our own level. We're trying to cram Him into our little box, into our tiny little temple that was built with human hands to make Him live according to our rules and according to our expectations. And beloved, we must never do that. Rather, we must let God be God. Let God be God. This was so marvelous about the way Solomon approaches God in this prayer. He does not foolishly try to cram God into the temple that he just built, however grand and glorious that temple may be. He recognizes who this God is, and he approaches Him as such. I know, O Lord, that you are a God who dwells high above the heavens and even the heaven of heavens. I know, O Lord God, that it is too much to ask that you would actually come to live in this tiny little building that I have constructed. But, O Lord, from your place of exaltation, being who you are, let your eye be upon this house, this tiny little house. Let your ear be open to the cries of your people as they are directed toward this place and have respect to us. Condescend to us and meet us where we are. Isn't that what we want, beloved? We don't want a God who fits neatly into our little box. A God like that can't help you. A God like that is no different than the people who are really fashioning that false God in their own image. You don't want that God. You want the God who's so great that even the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him. You want the God who's absolutely sovereign and free. You want the God who's absolutely holy. You want the God who is absolutely defiant of all human wisdom and all human expectations. Approach him that way. Let God be God when he speaks to you through the scriptures. And hear him as he is. Let God be God when you arrive in his house on the Lord's day. Let God be God when you sit at the table with him in the sacrament. The second thing to say is that we must approach God on the basis of God's own word. Did you catch that in Solomon's prayer in our text? It might seem as if Solomon has relinquished his entire claim that this temple is, in fact, God's house. How does Solomon have the right to say that this temple is the house of God if he has just said that God is too great to dwell in temples, including this one? Doesn't that just make this a very elaborate but very empty building? Why should Israel go here? Why should Israel worship here? Why should Israel pray toward this temple and offer sacrifices in this temple? The answer is because God said that he would treat this building as his own house. God said that he would put his name here. Solomon asks God to have respect to this building and to keep his eye upon it because, verse 20, thou has said that thou wouldest put thy name there to hearken unto the prayer which thy servant prayeth toward this place. And Solomon believes the Word of God and approaches God through His Word, which he receives as a faithful promise. Beloved, that's instructive to us as we ready ourselves to partake of the Lord's Supper. There's been somewhat of a trend. It might be a mild trend, but I think it's a significant trend of evangelicals who are on the move back to Roman Catholicism. And a big part of their move back to Roman Catholicism has to do with the way Rome speaks of the sacrament and the Mass. There's something attractive to the idea that what you eat in the Lord's Supper is substantially, physically, the body of Christ. And perhaps there's something particularly attractive to people in our own modern times. People are sick of everything being mediated. Mediated through screens, mediated through technology. They want something real. Something substantial to sink their teeth into. And Rome appears to have the solution with its sacrament and its doctrine of transubstantiation and the whole edifice of Rome that goes along with it. But beloved, we must know that there's nothing more solid, nothing more real, nothing more substantial or important than the Word of God. Reality itself exists only because God spoke in the beginning. When God says, therefore, that He will use the Lord's Supper as a means to confirm us in our faith. To confirm that He is our God. That's a powerful word. A powerful word to everyone who believes it. With very real and, may I say, substantial, concrete effects in the lives of His people. Which means the question is not how solid is the sacrament itself or the thing that we chew with our mouths. But the question is rather, do you believe what God is telling you through that sacrament? Because then and only then will you be prepared to meet the Lord at his table. We must come, beloved, on the basis of what God has said, on the basis of his word. The final and perhaps the most important thing to say is that we must approach God through his mercy. through his mercy. That's what makes this picture of Solomon standing on the brass scaffold and saying what he says in his prayer so striking. Here's this great king with a crown of gold on his head and a robe of purple around his shoulders. He's just built this great temple, a massive human achievement when judged by earthly standards. But he's not standing here trying to twist God's arm. He's standing there asking God for mercy. Have mercy upon us, O Lord. O Lord, you don't have to do anything for us. You don't have to give anything to us on account of this temple that I have built. O Lord, have respect to us anyway. Look down upon us. Put your name upon us as you said you would in the mercies of David. And hear our prayers. And then this, crucially this, when you hear our prayers. Forgive. Forgive. Any prayer that is directed toward this house, if it is directed in faith, will be directed by those who understand that they are approaching this holy God as sinners who are in need of grace. And it would be in God's rights to ignore every one of those prayers and to turn their face, to turn his face firmly away. Nevertheless, Lord, forgive, forgive. When afflictions are sent by you because we are walking in unbelief, and thy people turn themselves again to you asking for mercy, Lord, forgive, forgive, and take away the affliction and restore to your people your shining face. And what that means ultimately, beloved, is that the only way to approach God is through Christ and through Christ alone. That's what all of those sacrifices that will be offered on the altar point to. They point to the great sacrifice, the one that is coming, the great sacrifice that God himself will make personally when he comes to dwell among men on the earth in the flesh. Remember that in your examination this week, We're readying ourselves to meet with God at his table, but we're readying ourselves to meet God as he has first come down to meet us in the flesh, in his mercy through our Emmanuel. That's the Lord whom we meet in the Lord's Supper. And that's why the answer to that question of Solomon. Surprisingly, wonderfully, beautifully, is yes. Yes. Will God in very deed come to dwell among men on the earth? Yes. Yes, he will. In his mercy and in his grace, through the Lord Jesus Christ, approach him through his name. And this great God, through the Lord Jesus Christ, will live with us. That's what the whole idea of the temple as a house of God was designed to communicate, beloved. It's a house, remember. It's a house. It's a house. And in that house, there's a table with bread on it. It's a house. And in that house, there's a candlestick to cast light in the darkness. It's a house. And what is a house? It's a house where families meet together and live together and fellowship together. And the Lord wants us to think that way. when we approach Him in the Lord's Supper next week. We're coming to sit at the table with Him. We're coming to eat and drink with Him. We're coming to sup with Him in His house the way families do. If sometimes you think the sacrament is so simple. Why is it so simple? There's no frills. There's no elaborate rituals. It's just the breaking of the bread, the pouring out of the wine, the eating and the drinking. What's so special about this? But what we must understand, beloved, it's exactly that ordinariness which makes it so special when you understand who it is that comes to meet us in these things. God comes to meet with you at the table. To eat and to drink with you. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that special? That's the covenant, beloved. Life with God. And beloved, He does that ultimately in a way that is more surprising than Solomon could ever have guessed and more wonderful than Solomon could ever have guessed. If the temple that Solomon built was too small of a place for God to come live in? How about in the very hearts of his people? How about it if God would come right down into the very lives and thoughts and feelings of little children and of the men and the women whom he redeems? How about if God should come and fill us with all of his fullness into the small corners of human lives and human concerns. Will God indeed dwell among men on the earth? He will. He will come and dwell among us, right down inside of us. For you, the scripture says, are the temple of the Holy Spirit. You are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. You are that building fitly framed together to grow into the holy temple of the Lord, to be a habitation, a dwelling place of God through the spirit. You are that beloved as individual believers, and you are that collectively as the church, the temple of God. When God comes to meet with you at his table next week, he comes to dwell in his temple. to fill your lives with his glorious, majestic presence. He comes in his mercy and in his love and in his grace. With all of the greatness of who he is as the great God, whom even the heaven of heavens cannot contain. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that amazing? Are you ready to meet him? Are you prepared? prepared for life with this God, the God who is too great for temples, but who nevertheless chooses in an act of mercy and grace to make you his temple. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, We thank Thee for revealing Thyself to us in all of Thy greatness, in all of Thy might, in all of Thy sovereign freedom and glory. And we thank Thee, O Father, for establishing in our hearts the reality of who Thou art so that we would have Thee no other way. And we marvel, too, that for all of thy greatness and all of the wonder of thy being, that nevertheless thou has chosen to come dwell with us and even in us and to make us thy holy temple and to cleanse us from the inside out. And we pray do so, O Father. Come to live with us and in us, sanctify us, cleanse us, dwell with us, and prepare us to meet thee at thy table next week. Forgive our sins. Sanctify us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.