Sermon Tone Analysis

! Greeting and Introduction.

* Introduce myself

* Thankful to be here

* Encourage people to take notes because:

* something for your quiet time or devotion time

* ask the Lord to make truth real in lives

* ask the Lord to help us continually practice these truths everyday

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Open your Bibles and turn to 2 Chronicles 7: 12-16.

CONTEXT of this passage.

* Solomon has just completed the New Temple.

* He made a prayer of dedication of the Temple to God in.

In fact a good example of a man praying to add to your notes can be found before this passage in 2 Chron 6:12 - 42 when King Solomon stands before the temple to pray the prayer of dedication of the temple.

King Solomon expresses very notable truths about God that we should remember

* consuming and uncontainable presence of God,

* faithfulness of God,

* the mercy of God

and King Solomon goes own to pray to God about man's nature to sin and asks God for His mercy and forgiveness ahead of time.

Solomon uses prayer as a means to communicate his Earthly requests back to God in Heaven in order to invite His presence into the lives of the Israelites, to find favor in the eyes of God.

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* After he finished praying, the glory of the Lord filled the Temple and all of Israel saw it and Everyone worshiped.The /fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices/ Verse 1 of Chapter 7 says

* Then Solomon and everyone offered a humongous sacrifice, 22,000 oxen, and 120,000 sheep.

* The Levites used the musical instruments to give praise to the Lord.

* Then Solomon consecrated the court in order to hold the sacrifice because the bronze alter was not big enough for the offerings.

* Then they had a feast and assembly (kinda like homecoming).

(I don't know what they would have eaten) (Mention some home cooking)

This went on for almost a month and then the people went to their tents.

Solomon is finished.

He has built the temple, prayed over the temple, and then /God’s glory came down/.

They worshiped, sacrificed, and ate and fellowshipped and then went home.

He and the nation of Israel have done all they can do to worship and praise God.

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Then the Lord appeared to Solomon, the Lord is ready to respond to Solomon.

\\ Again, all this had gone on for nearly a month after Solomon’s dedication prayer and the Lord chooses to speak to Solomon.

This is where are text picks up; it is the response of God to Solomon's prayer.

\\ {{@Cue Lets start reading in 2 Chron 7: starting with verse 12.}}

\\ *12*     Then the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him, “I /have heard/ your prayer and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice.

*13*     “If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or *if* I send pestilence among My people,

*14*     and *My people* who are called by My name /humble themselves/ and /pray/ and /seek My face/ and /turn from their wicked ways/ then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

*15*     “Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place.

*16*     “For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that My name may be there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually.

/New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update/.

LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995, S. 2 Ch 7:12-16

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\\ Practically everybody uses prayer.

Prayer has been defined as a /devout petition/ /TO/ (one could say a committed appeal or /request/) or a spiritual communion /WITH/ *God or* an *object of worship.*

[REPEAT THIS]

This makes sense to those of us who belong to or practice a particualr religion.

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* Christians pray to Jesus

* Jews pray to God

* Muslims pray to Allah

* Hindus pray to multiple Gods

 

Most religions, cults or belief systems all have some type of deity or higher being or unseen force that they try to communicate with.

But did you realize that by this definition, even an atheist, prays.

I would like to take a moment and show that to you.

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* If we look back at the Definition.

It has two parts to it that deal with a relationship to an object of worship

* /request/ /TO/ *an object of worship*.

* /spiritual communion WITH/ *an object of worship*.

So we have two simple aspects to apply to prayer

* the /request/

* it is /spiritual/

Now lets look at prayer in the perspective of what an atheist may encounter.

Keep in mind the atheist believes that

* their is no diety, or higher power;

* he believes that mankind is the only consciousness there has been or ever will be.

* That everything that exists in the universe is only physical - that is, tangible, visual, detectable, traceable and so on.

This is how they rule out the existence a God.

Because God, in /their/ limited knowledge, does not exist in the any of these physical forms.

Physical is the opposite of Spiritual .

Our conscience within our physical body, however, is not physcial.

It must therefore be Spiritual.

That is why it is part of what makes up our spiritual being, not our physical being.

\\ The atheist, just like anyone else, will ask himself consciously, “why do good things or bad things happen to people?"

* He is asking himself, his own conscience-being, his spiritual side, this particular question, this request if you will.

* This question would literally produce endless answers if mankind was meant to be the only source of information to provide an answer to that difficult question.

* But the question he asks, by its own simple and direct nature, is an absolute question, that requires an absolute answer from one source.

It is the type of question that cannot be satisfied by multiple answers.

The answer to this great question would have to come from one source.

So, in the atheist's question to himself, he is unkowingly praying to himself.

He has met the two-fold nature of prayer.

* The /Request/, because he is petitioning, or asking himself for an answer

* The /Spiritual/, because he is speaking to his own conscience, not another person.

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This is how the atheist becomes an idolator because of his worship of himself.

* He places himself above God.

* He creates a god in his own mind, the god that is himself, from which all standards, values, truth, and peace forth.

The atheist, when he asks himself such a question, is

* Expressing a desire to hear a response, or receive communication from something within himself.

* Seeking a source of knowledge, peace, and joy; rather than seeking a response outside of him.

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The expression, *"there are no Atheists in Foxholes"*.?

Why would that expression hold any water?

Combat is a

* hopeless situation

* one place where a person would have to ask why

* one place where the big question of eternity is asked by people

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This is when the atheist, faced with the reality that his physical life on Earth may end in the blink of an eye, begins to ask the big question about what happens after he dies.

Once he is faced with that reality, he soon learns the other reality that the answer to that question is not within him and that it must be outside of him.

In order to find some type of answer, his pride and doubt start to fade away because fear has taken over and pushes him into spiritual survival mode and he seeks a God outside himself to save him from the potential death that he faces.

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I go to this length of to put into perspective the reality of prayer within each of us, no matter our faith or level of spirituality.

All of us pray in some way or another.

For the Christian, God has provided for us in His word the way that He expects us to pray.

In this passage of scripture, God gives us *four distinct components that make up a /KEY/ to unlock* the barriers that allow our prayers to be heard by God and to allow Him to work in our lives in response to our prayers.

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I use the terms /key/ and /unlock/ and /lock/ to give the illustration or word pictures used to describe the purpose and function of a lock.The purpose of a lock is to protect something that is valuable.

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As Christians, we should hold our prayers and prayer life as something precious, something of the highest /spiritual value/ with regard to our relationship to the Father.