1 Kings 8:41-43

The Stranger's Interest in the Temple.

Kindly human sympathy is one of the most marked characteristics of this prayer of Solomon. This is seen in the way in which he enters into various supposed conditions of need and suffering among his people; takes the burden and the "plague" upon himself as if it were his own; a true intercessor on their behalf. His royalty assumes here the aspect of fatherhood. The model king is one in heart and interest with those over whom he rules. We are reminded, too, that before the "mercy seat" of God all human distinctions are lost. All suppliants stand on one common level, subject to the same dangers and necessities. All true prayer, therefore, is thus broad in its sympathies. But in this passage the king's supplications take a wider range than the needs of his own people. He pleads for the "stranger," the foreigner from a "far country." This is strictly in harmony with the Divine economy of the time, however much it may seem to be otherwise. It is remarkable how much there was in the Mosaic law that was expressly intended to enforce on the people a generous regard for those who were beyond their pale. They were commanded not to "vex a stranger" ( Exodus 22:21 ), to relieve his poverty (Le 25:85), even to "love" him as "God loveth him in giving him iced and raiment" ( Deuteronomy 10:18 , Deuteronomy 10:19 ), and all this in memory of the fact that they themselves were once "strangers in the land of Egypt." Strangers, moreover were to be permitted to hear the solemn reading of the law in the "year of release" ( Deuteronomy 31:12 ), and to offer sacrifices on the same conditions as themselves. "One law and one manner shall be for you and for the stranger that sojourneth with you" ( Numbers 15:16 ). So that Solomon gave expression to the spirit of the dispensation to which he belonged when he thus prayed. Certain broad truths underlie this prayer—

I. JEHOVAH 'S UNIVERSAL SOVEREIGNTY . He is the "God of the whole earth," and not merely of any particular portion of it ( Isaiah 54:5 ). "Is he the God of the Jews only and not of the Gentries?" ( Romans 3:29 .) "The God of the spirits of all flesh" ( Numbers 16:22 ). The whole Mosaic economy was built on the grand truth of the unity and absolute worldwide supremacy of Jehovah. The heathen according to their principle of local deities, might acknowledge the God of the Hebrews as having authority over his own, but a Hebrew who should in any way recognize the gods of other nations and think of Jehovah merely as a national deity could be a traitor to the commonwealth. The only living and true God can have no rival. The gods of the nations are idols, and "an idol is nothing in the world"—"a lying vanity," a vile "abomination." "The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God" ( 1 Corinthians 8:4 , 1 Corinthians 8:5 ; 1 Corinthians 10:20 ). To "know God," to have "him whom they ignorantly worship" declared to them, is "eternal life" to men. The absence of this knowledge is death. The curse and misery of the world is that it "knows not its God." Solomon here dimly recognizes this truth; and the case he contemplates is that of some child of the Universal Father in whom the sense of need has been awakened, "coming from a far country" to "seek the Lord, if haply he may feel after him and find him" ( Acts 17:27 , Acts 17:28 ).

II. THE REPRESENTATIVE CHARACTER OF ISRAEL . They were a representative people in two respects.

III. THE ATTRACTION OF THE TEMPLE FOR ALL LONGING HUMAN HEARTS AS THE SCENE OF GRACIOUS DIVINE MANIFESTATION . That which made it the centre of interest to pious Jews made it so also to earnest souls of other lands. The truth and mercy symbolized and enshrined there—promises, atoning sacrifices, benedictions—answered to universal needs of humanity. Solomon supposes a case in which the vague sense of this should lead the "stranger in a far off land" to look with longing eyes, or to bend his steps, towards "the house over which God's name is called." We have no historical record of strangers actually worshipping in the first temple as they did in that built after the captivity; but God said, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people"; and there may have been many who, with a far reaching hand of faith, "took hold of His covenant" as established there.

IV. THE RESPONSE GOD GAVE TO EVERY TRUE SUPPLIANT , WHOEVER HE MIGHT BE . "Hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place," etc. This intercessory prayer, we may be sure, was answered. God does not awaken holy yearnings in any soul that He will not satisfy. "In every nation, he that feareth him," etc. The sovereignty that reigns over all lands is that of Almighty Love. There is room in the infinite Father's heart for all, even the far. off "stranger," and "the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him."—W.

HOMILIES BY A. ROWLAND