No God Like Thee

King Solomon’s prayer dedicating the temple to “the Lord God of Israel” is, to me, one of the most beautiful prayers of the Bible (2 Chronicles, chapter 6). It is an honest and humble and pleading prayer that describes so clearly the condition of man and his need for a great and mighty God to deliver or “save” him from that condition. And it is made most beautiful by the fact that God responded in such a remarkably GOD way (2 Chronicles, chapter 7).

I think it is necessary to stop for a moment and remember that the “Lord God of Israel” once dwelled among His people, the Israelites, in a humble tent called the “Tabernacle”. Once the Israelites found their “promised land” and flourished there, exchanging their portable tents for permanent dwelling places, King David determined that God also must no longer been seen to dwell in a lowly tent, but in a fine house that David himself wanted to build for God. But God could not allow David’s hands of war to build His holy dwelling place, and so He chose Solomon, David’s son, to build the temple instead.

Unlike the false gods the Israelites were so familiar with in the people that surrounded them, rather than desiring golden statues to be made in His image and worshipped, the One True God humbled Himself and dwelled in the desert with His people in a tent. And even though Solomon knew that his God could not be contained by a mere building fashioned by man, still he sought to bring honor to the name of His God by building one of the tallest most magnificent buildings ever seen, and asked that God would continue to dwell with them, lead them and deliver them.

We can see all of this as being a typology of Jesus Christ who dwells among us today, not in the temple man built, but in the temple God built: redeemed mankind. First a tent, then a temple, then man. Someone once said that home is where the heart is. God has demonstrated to us over and over again that His heart is with us, by making His home with us, and then, after the cross, even in us. It makes me want to ask, as the well-known Christmas carol does: “What God is this (who came to dwell)?”

HE IS THE GOD to whom Solomon could so confidently ask things such as this:

“Now therefore, O Lord God of Israel, keep with thy servant David my father that which thou hast promised him…”;

“…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, 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 they sin against thee (for there is no man that 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 whither 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 dealt wickedly: if they return to thee with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, whither 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 have sinned against thee…”;

“…now my God, let, I beseech thee, thine eyes be open and let thine ears be attent 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.”

HE IS THE GOD who sent fire from heaven to consume the sacrifices placed before the temple and whose glory filled that temple so much that:

“…the priests could not enter into the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord’s house, and when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the Lord upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement, and worshipped, and praised the Lord, saying, For He is good; for His mercy endureth for ever.”

HE IS THE GOD who appeared to Solomon later in the night of the temple dedication, and said to him:

“I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for an house of sacrifice.

If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; if my people which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place. For now have I chosen and sanctified this house, that my name may be there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.”

HE IS THE GOD who continued in saying this to Solomon:

“…but if ye turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them: then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for my name, will I cast out of my sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among the nations.”

We know that the glory-filled temple was destroyed, just as God said it would be if the people ever turned away from the Lord God and worshipped other gods, which they did. And even the second temple built was eventually destroyed for the same reasons. And yet, God is the same today as He was then, in that His heart is with His people, whether they are in captivity or free, though He longs for them to be (and remain) free. And He promises always to be there to save us when we call out to Him.

This is the God who is our God, and there is no God like Him in the heavens or in the earth.

HE IS THE GOD to whom we pray....whose eyes are open and ears attentive...to us!